“It has been confirmed through the intelligence service of an allied country that the North Korean soldier who was captured on December 26 has just died,” the South Korean National Intelligence Service said in a statement.
Just hours earlier, South Korean intelligence confirmed that a North Korean soldier who had been wounded had been captured.
This is the first known case of a North Korean soldier captured by Ukraine.
Information about the captured North Korean appeared on the Internet on Thursday, but this fact was confirmed by the South Korean intelligence service on Friday.
On Thursday, several Ukrainian “Telegram” channels and media outlets published information that soldiers of the Ukrainian special operations forces captured the first North Korean soldier in a battle in the Kursk region of Russia.
The soldier was injured before being captured. His photo was published.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced this week that the number of killed and wounded North Korean soldiers in the Kursk region exceeded three thousand.
On the other hand, the South Korean intelligence services estimate that around 100 North Korean soldiers were killed and around 1000 were injured.