Ukraine and UK seal historic treaty amid capture of North Korean troops

On the programme ‘De cara al mundo’ on Onda Madrid, reporter, and journalist María Senovilla, a contributor to Atalayar, analysed how Ukrainian troops captured North Korean soldiers, who were fighting alongside Russia.  

He also considered the 100-year friendship treaty signed by Volodymyr Zelensky and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Maria, North Korean soldiers are fighting alongside Russian troops, and some have been captured by Ukrainian units. How did this capture come about?  

That is right, the fact that Ukraine captured several alive has caused quite a stir this week. It was Zelensky himself who made it public on his social media. He even published transcripts of some fragments of the interrogations and, as the days go by, more details are becoming known, because the capture was no accident. It was achieved thanks to a military operation, the aim of which was to capture North Korean soldiers alive. 

Although their involvement in this war had been denounced for months, as the months passed, there were many videos captured with drones, testimonies from Ukrainian soldiers and corroboration from US, South Korean and even Ukrainian intelligence services, which put the size of the contingent at around 12,000 soldiers.  

Despite all this evidence, some pro-Russian forums continued to deny the involvement of North Korean fighters in the Ukrainian war. So Zelensky ordered a mission to provide evidence of this reality. The mission took a month before they succeeded because North Korean soldiers are trained to blow themselves up with a grenade before they are captured.  

This has been one of the biggest obstacles faced by the special operations troops of the Ukrainian forces tasked with capturing these North Koreans while operating in Russia's Kursk region.  

One of the soldiers who took part in the mission, and who gave an interview a few hours ago, said that overcoming the fanatical and suicidal zeal instilled in the Pyongyang troops was almost impossible. He added that when they were about to be taken prisoner, they would shout slogans such as ‘Glory to the party’ or ‘Glory to Kim Jong-un,’ pick up a grenade and blow themselves up.  

This is something that is inculcated in Russian soldiers, but they seem to obey less than the North Koreans. I had the opportunity to interview several of these Russian prisoners captured in Kursk a few months ago. I had access to a detention centre, and I was able to interview several of them. And they were telling me this very thing, that their Russian officers were training them, trying to burn into them, that it was better to die than to be captured as a prisoner of war by the Ukrainian side because they were going to inflict a range of horrific tortures on them. So, I said to the soldier, ‘but you didn't believe it, because you're here alive and you're talking to me.’ He said, ‘no, it's just that when they arrested me, I went to get a grenade to blow myself up and I had run out.’ It was an almost comical moment, but it is terrible how they instil these suicidal orders in them that before they are taken prisoner, they should take their own lives.  

Turning to the North Koreans, Zelensky has claimed that North Korea has suffered some 4,000 casualties in the fighting on the Russian side against Ukraine in recent months, and South Korea's intelligence agency has corroborated these figures. It has estimated North Korean losses at 300 dead and some 2,700 wounded and, nevertheless, no one is ruling out Kim Jong-un sending more troops to the Kremlin in this countdown until Donald Trump comes to power and we see what happens at the political level and at the negotiating tables. 

This is also corroborated by the chair of NATO's Military Committee, Admiral Rob Bauer, who says that a third of the North Korean soldiers fighting alongside Russia against Ukrainian forces are either dead or wounded. You have been to the frontline in Kharkov and spoken to Ukrainian soldiers, what do Ukrainian soldiers think of an end to the war as Trump is promising when he gets to the White House?  

This is one of the topics on the lips of all Ukrainians these days, the countdown to Trump's inauguration is in its final stretch and you can really feel it on the ground in Ukraine. I was able to go to the front line to a drone position and I took the opportunity to ask the soldiers who were there their point of view, their vision, what they expected for the coming weeks or months. Also, it was a remarkably busy night because there were Shahed drones and when there are Shahed drones it is impossible to fly Ukrainian attack drones. 

I was in a position with a Vampire drone, which is a Ukrainian-produced drone, which costs $25,000 each to make. It is not a trivial thing. So, when there is Shahed or when they are under attack, they reserve the aircraft and do not fly it. We were there for three hours, waiting for the Shahed to leave, and I took the opportunity to talk to them and ask them what they had in mind about what those negotiations might look like.  

I asked them if the military side, if the more than one million people who are now mobilised by the army were going to accept the capitulation of Ukraine and the possible loss of territory, and what they wanted to do first when the war was over. As for accepting the possibility of losing the occupied territories, they told me that the fatigue of these three years had already taken its toll on many of them and that most of them had already realised that part of the territories that were occupied, especially those in the Donbas, were practically impossible to recover.  

But mind you, they told me that when the war is over, if these negotiations begin as soon as Trump promises and come to a successful conclusion, ‘the first thing we will do is rest, but the second thing we will do is continue training and prepare for the next invasion by Russia because it will not stand still, because it is an unreliable neighbour and because no Ukrainian is confident that if the war ends now without sufficient guarantees, a new large-scale invasion will not be repeated and be even worse than the first one’.  

For a start, what Zelensky has done is to sign a 100-year friendship treaty with the UK Prime Minister, Britain's Starmer.  

This was one of the important news. Ukraine and the UK sign this 100-year partnership agreement, and the British have also pledged an additional $3.6 billion in military support to Ukraine that will start arriving shortly. The agreement was signed by Volodymyr Zelensky on behalf of Ukraine and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who visited Kyiv for the occasion. 

Russia took the opportunity to bomb, which is also nothing new because in recent days massive attacks, as always, have been present in several Ukrainian cities. 

Returning to this agreement with the UK, it is a very broad agreement that covers cooperation in the military, energy, scientific, cultural and economic sectors, among others, and is based on a previous trade and association agreement that both countries signed in 2020 and the bilateral security agreement that they signed afterwards. But this one, we insist, is much broader and covers a 100-year period of validity. The document includes 10 main pillars, ranging from strengthening defence capabilities and supporting Ukraine's aspirations to join NATO, to international cooperation in trade, energy, and the justice sector. 

During their presentation, both leaders reminded the audience that these friendship agreements are a response to Russia's expansionist ambitions and warned that this is the best response that Western countries can give, to unite with each other in the face of the Kremlin's unceasing expansionist ambitions. In addition, the British are also sending 150 artillery guns and a mobile air defence system and have joined the EU countries' initiative to expand training for Ukrainian fighters on European soil and, in this case, on British soil as well. 

Despite the fact that we are very aware of Trump's accession to the White House and that he has promised to put an immediate end to the war in Ukraine, both the EU countries and the UK continue to extend this aid, this military support, this backing for Ukraine, and they are not setting an expiry date.