For weeks, Ukrainian troops braced for an unfamiliar enemy: North Korean soldiers sent to bolster Moscow’s forces after Ukraine launched a lightning-fast incursion and seized territory in Russia's Kursk region over the summer.

The wounded fighters were taken to Kyiv for questioning, authorities said, where they could reveal details of Pyongyang’s cooperation with Moscow.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said the soldiers were captured in the western Kursk region, where Ukraine has been fighting to hold on to territory it seized last summer.