2 North Korea soldiers, captured in Russia’s Kursk region, in hospital in Kyiv, Ukraine, January 11, 2025
Saturday’s Coverage: “Significant Blow” of Further Sanctions on Russian Oil and Gas
Map: Institute for the Study of War
UPDATE 1406 GMT:
Air defenses downed 60 of 94 drones launched by Russia overnight. The other 34 decoy drones were lost to electronic counter-measures.
The drones were intercepted over the Poltava, Sumy, Kharkiv, Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Kyiv, Zaporizhzhia, Kirovohrad, Zhytomyr, Khmelnytskyi, and Donetsk regions.
Falling debris damaged several residential houses in the Kharkiv, Sumy, and Poltava regions. No casualties were reported.
UPDATE 0750 GMT:
American companies that continue to operate in Russian market paid $1.2 billion in income taxes to Moscow in 2023.
The B4Ukraine group and the Kyiv School of Economics issued the assessment on Saturday.
In 2021, before Vladimir Putin’s full invasion of Ukraine, American businesses in Russia paid only $915.7 million to Moscow, despite revenues that were 65% higher than in 2023.
The US became the largest foreign taxpayer to the Russian budget by the end of 2023.
The top ten American companies paying taxes: Philip Morris — $220 million; PepsiCo — $135 million; Mars — $99 million; Procter & Gamble — $67 million; Mondelez — $62 million; Citigroup — $53 million; Cargill — $50 million; Johnson & Johnson — $42 million; Coca-Cola Hellenic — $34 million; and Weatherford — $32 million.
Former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul commented:
It is absolutely disgraceful that American companies have chosen to stay in Russia and subsidize Putin’s barbaric war in Ukraine. I hope the shareholders of these companies will think twice about the wisdom and morality of funding the murder of civilians. It is not too late to do the right thing.
German companies were second in tax payments, with $693 million to the Russian budget. Austria was third with $579 million.
UPDATE 0730 GMT:
Ukraine struck one of Russia’s largest oil refineries on Saturday.
Ukrainian drones hit the Taneko oil refinery in Nizhnekamsk in Tatarstan, around 1,300 km (808 miles) inside Russia. Workers were evacuated, as smoke rose from the site.
Andrii Kovalenko, head of Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation, said, “The refinery plays a key role in providing fuel to the Russian military. Taking out refineries and oil depots directly affects Russia’s ability to wage an intensive war.”
ORIGINAL ENTRY: Ukraine’s troops have captured two North Korean soldiers as prisoners of war in the Kursk region in western Russia.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Saturday:
Usually, Russia and other North Korean military personnel finish off their wounded and do everything possible to ensure that no evidence of the participation of another state — North Korea — in the war against Ukraine is preserved.
The two wounded soldiers received necessary medical care and are in the custody of Ukraine’s State security service SBU in Kyiv, said Zelensky. Video showed them in hospital bunks, one with bandaged hands and the other with a bandaged jaw.
Our soldiers have captured North Korean military personnel in the Kursk region. Two soldiers, though wounded, survived and were transported to Kyiv, where they are now communicating with the Security Service of Ukraine.
This was not an easy task: Russian forces and other North… pic.twitter.com/5J0hqbarP6
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) January 11, 2025
Citing “irrefutable evidence” of the involvement of North Korean soldiers in the Russian war against Ukraine, the SBU said the POWs are being questioned with the help of Korean translators and South Korean intelligence.
One of the POWs said he was born in 2005 and was a rifleman who had been in military service in North Korea since 2021.
“It is noteworthy that the prisoner, like the Russian military at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, emphasizes that he was supposedly going for training and not for a war against Ukraine,” the SBU said.
The other POW was born in 1999 and has served in the North Korean army since 2016 as a sniper reconnaissance officer.
The first POW was issued with an ID document under the name of another person from Russia’s Tuva Republic, bordering Mongolia, while the second one had no documents at all.
South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said it had “confirmed that the Ukrainian military captured two North Korean soldiers on 9 January in the Kursk battlefield in Russia”. It also said one had spoken of his military training from Russia after arriving in November.
The soldier said North Korean forces had experienced “significant losses during battle”, the NIS said. One of the men “went without food or water for four to five days before being captured”.
Almost two weeks ago, the NIS said Ukrainian troops had captured a North Korean soldier who soon died of his wounds.
Ukrainian, South Korean, and US intelligence service estimate that around 11,000 North Korean soldiers have been deployed alongside Russian units since last autumn. Most are in Kursk, part of which has been held by Ukraine since a cross-border incursion last August 6.
Zelensky says around 4,000 North Korean troops have been killed or wounded. Last month South Korea’s NIS put the number at 1,100.
What’s wrong with North Korean soldiers fighting alongside side with Russians ? All is money. Have you forgotten how many “US allies” fighting in Vietnam, Iraq. Afghanistan… The goal is feeding the stomachs!