The Ukrainian fighting North Koreans in Russia
Ukrainecast
BBC
4.7 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 14 January 2025
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A Ukrainian officer fighting in Russia’s Kursk region gives us a unique insight into what it’s like taking on North Korean soldiers.
We also hear from the editor-in-chief of the Economist, Zanny Minton Beddoes. She discusses how the new sanctions on Russian oil will hurt the country’s economy and tells us why Donald Trump won’t want to be seen as a loser.
Today’s episode is presented by Victoria Derbyshire and Vitaly Shevchenko. The producers were Arsenii Sokolov, Ben Carter and Ryan Johnston. The technical producer was Ben Andrews. The series producer is Tim Walklate. The assistant editor is Ben Mundy. Email Ukrainecast@bbc.co.uk with your questions and comments. You can also send us a message or voice note via WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram to +44 330 1239480
You can join the Ukrainecast discussion on Newscast’s Discord server here: tinyurl.com/ukrainecastdiscord
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:04.8 | Hello, it's 156 days since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. |
| 0:10.7 | And over the weekend, President Zelensky posted photographs of two North Korean soldiers |
| 0:15.4 | captured by Ukraine. |
| 0:18.0 | What do we know about these two men? |
| 0:19.6 | Well, importantly, they were captured in Russia's |
| 0:23.4 | Kursk region, where Ukraine has launched its own incursion. According to President Zelensky, |
| 0:30.8 | it wasn't so easy to capture them because he said Russian forces kill wounded North Koreans |
| 0:37.4 | specifically to prevent their capture. |
| 0:40.7 | The Ukrainian Security Service later published details of their interrogation saying that they don't speak English or Russian, let alone Ukrainian. |
| 0:51.4 | They're pretty young and one of them said that he had not been told he was going to war |
| 0:57.3 | with Ukraine. He was told he was going on a training mission somewhere in Russia. |
| 1:04.0 | And these photos, as you say, they look in the 20s, would you say? One is reported to be a prisoner of war and you can see that he has |
| 1:13.3 | an injured lip and there is a bandage round his jaw and all the way around the top of his head. |
| 1:17.9 | It's even worse than just the lip. The SBU, the Ukrainian security service said that he |
| 1:22.2 | can't talk because of injurious to his face. Okay. And the bandage is bloodied. And then on the other one, |
| 1:29.3 | a North Korean prisoner of war, looking directly at the camera, wearing a sweater around the top |
| 1:34.1 | half of his chest, if you like, just over his shoulders. And presumably that's because he can't |
| 1:39.5 | get the sweater on properly because you can see he's got thick bandages around his hands and up his wrists. |
| 1:47.1 | And we had this question from Mark on Discord. |
| 1:50.3 | I understand that releasing photos of POWs is against the Geneva Convention. |
| 1:54.7 | Ukraine released photos of two North Korean prisoners. |
... |
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