Ukraine-Russia war latest: Zelensky offers Kim Jong Un prisoner swap for soldiers captured from Kursk – UK Times

About 23,000 households were left without electricity after Russian shelling of Kherson in southern Ukraine damaged power equipment in the city, the local military administration said yesterday.

The attack targeted the Dniprovskiy district along the Dnipro River, an area of Kherson that is regularly shelled by Russian troops on the opposite bank.

Kherson’s governor, Oleksandr Prokudin, said Kherson city and around 50 settlements in the surrounding region had been shelled by Russian troops over the past 24 hours.

“The Russian military shelled social infrastructure and residential areas of the region’s settlements, in particular, damaging 2 multi-storey buildings and 8 private houses,” Mr Prokudin said on Telegram.

North Korean troop fatalities and injuries in Ukraine have likely exceeded 3,000, including about 300 deaths and 2,700 injuries, a South Korean lawmaker briefed by the country’s spy agency said today.

North Korean authorities appear to have called for its troops to commit suicide by blowing themselves up to evade capture, the lawmaker said citing the National Intelligence Service (NIS).

Captured North Korean soldiers had not shown an intention to come to South Korea, though South Korea would cooperate with Ukraine if there was a request, Yonhap news agency also reported, citing NIS.

Volodymyr Zelensky has said North Korea can take its soldiers from Kyiv in a prisoner swap for Ukrainian soldiers held inside Russia.

“Ukraine is ready to hand over Kim Jong Un’s soldiers to him if he can organize their exchange for our warriors who are being held captive in Russia,” he said.

Volodymyr Zelensky has posted a short video showing the interrogation of two men who are presented as North Korean soldiers.

The video shows one of the captured North Korean soldier lying on a bed with bandaged hands, while the other is sitting with a bandage on his jaw.

One of the men said through an interpreter that he did not know he was fighting against Ukraine and had been told he was on a training exercise.

The North Korean soldier claimed he hid in a shelter during the offensive and was found a couple of days later. He said that if he was ordered to return to North Korea, he would, but that he was ready to stay in Ukraine if given the chance.

“One of them (soldiers) expressed a desire to stay in Ukraine, the other to return to Korea,” Mr Zelensky said in a televised statement.

The Ukrainian president said that for North Korean soldiers who did not wish to return home, there may be other options available and “those who express a desire to bring peace closer by spreading the truth about this war in the Korean (language) will be given that opportunity.”

Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv is ready to hand over North Korean soldiers to their leader Kim Jong Un if he can facilitate their exchange for Ukrainians held captive in Russia.

“Ukraine is ready to hand over Kim Jong Un’s soldiers to him if he can organise their exchange for our warriors who are being held captive in Russia,” Mr Zelensky said.

“In addition to the first captured soldiers from North Korea, there will undoubtedly be more. It’s only a matter of time before our troops manage to capture others,” Mr Zelensky said.

On Saturday, the Ukrainian president said his forces have captured two North Koreans in Russia’s Kursk region. This is the first time Ukraine has announced the capture of North Korean soldiers alive since their entry into the nearly three-year-old war last autumn.

Ukrainian and Western assessments say that some 11,000 troops from Russia’s ally North Korea have been deployed in the Kursk region to support Moscow’s forces.

Former UK prime minister Boris Johnson says the solution to ending the war in Ukraine is for the country to join Nato.

Speaking to the Lithuanian news platform Delfi, Mr Johnson said the West must convey to Russian president Vladimir Putin that “Russia is no longer an empire.”

“What Putin is doing is archaic and barbaric, and he needs to understand that Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania – none of these countries are part of the Russian imperium anymore, and nor is Ukraine. It’s over,” the former UK prime minister said, adding: “No more empire, Vladimir, you f**king idiot!”

“I don’t hear anyone saying that when this catastrophe is over, the solution should be Ukraine’s membership in NATO. People have stopped talking about it. And I think it’s a big loss because the West is retreating again,” he said.