"Even if it costs me my life, I will carry out the orders of the supreme commander without hesitation. I will show the world the courage and sacrifice of Kim Jong-un's special forces." This is how the first page of a diary written by a North Korean soldier embedded with the Russian army who died on December 21 in a shootout in the Kursk region begins.
Some excerpts from this diary extracted from the deceased soldier - which has been disseminated by Ukrainian intelligence - reveal tactics used by the North Koreans deployed to support Russia, such as remaining motionless, acting as "bait" to attract drones while other comrades try to shoot them down.
But what has been found in the diary, more than sophisticated combat tactics, are the continuous expressions of unconditional love towards the supreme leader of North Korea and an extensive letter in which the soldier expresses the willingness to give his life for the country as a demonstration of his fervent loyalty to the regime that sent him to die in a distant war.
Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that around 3,800 of the approximately 12,000 North Korean soldiers deployed had "died or been injured" while fighting in the Russian border region of Kursk, where Putin's army has been fighting to repel the Ukrainian incursion.
At the end of December, Washington also released an estimate of North Korean casualties on the front, but in their case, they estimated that around a thousand North Korean soldiers had been killed or wounded. This Monday, it was the South Korean spy agency that, in a briefing in front of lawmakers, was more precise in stating that at least 300 North Korean soldiers sent to support Moscow's war have died and another 2,700 were injured during the fighting.
The news in recent days, beyond the number of North Koreans killed, is the capture of the first two soldiers from Kim's regime by Ukraine. After a video circulated on social media showing special forces soldiers from Ukraine transporting a wounded North Korean through a snowy forest, Zelensky stated on Saturday that two fighters had been captured alive in Kursk on January 9 and were taken to Kiev for interrogation.
The Ukrainian president also added that journalists could have access to the prisoners so that "the world can know the truth about what is happening." According to Zelensky, the capture "was not an easy task" because Russian forces and North Korean military personnel were allegedly executing wounded soldiers to "erase" any trace of Pyongyang's involvement in the war between Russia and Ukraine.
This is not the first time that Kiev has claimed the capture of North Korean soldiers during their incursion in Kursk, but in previous instances, the prisoners reportedly died from their injuries before being interrogated.
Over the weekend, South Korea explained that its intelligence service - the first to reveal the deployment of North Korean troops to Russia - had been collaborating with Ukraine to provide interpreters for the interrogation of the captured soldiers, who were carrying false Russian identity documents. One of them had a Russian army identification card issued in the name of a 26-year-old soldier from the Russian region of Tyva, bordering Mongolia.
"Both described themselves as experienced soldiers, and one said he had been sent to Russia for military training, not to fight," said the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the intelligence agency that also released a video showing two men with Asian features in hospital beds, one of them with both hands bandaged.
In a three-minute video released, the latter states that he wants to stay in Ukraine when asked if he wants to return home. During the interrogation, the soldier asks in Korean if Ukrainians "were good people," to which the interpreter responds that Ukraine was a good place to live. "I want to live here," the North Korean then says, adding that he would return home if forced, but he nods when the translator asks him again if he would like to stay in Ukraine.
The soldier also claims that he was unaware that he had been sent to Russia to fight in the war in Ukraine. "They said we were going to train as if it were a real combat situation," he recounts. "I was on the front line since January 3, and after seeing my comrades die, I hid in a shelter and was injured on January 5," he continues.
On Sunday, Zelensky offered to return the two captured soldiers to Pyongyang in exchange for Ukrainian captives in Russia. "Ukraine is ready to send Kim Jong-un the soldiers if he can guarantee their exchange for our warriors who are imprisoned in Russia," the Ukrainian wrote in a message posted on his X account.
South Korean intelligence services highlighted that Pyongyang exerts pressure through various means on its soldiers to take their own lives to avoid being captured.