Kremlin refuses to comment on Zelenskyy's offer to swap North Korean troops

The Kremlin is refusing to comment on President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's statement that Ukraine is willing to hand captured North Korean soldiers over to North Korea if an exchange for Ukrainian soldiers is arranged.

Source: Dmitry Peskov, spokesperson for Russian leader Vladimir Putin, quoted by TASS, a Russian state-owned news agency

Quote from Peskov: "We cannot comment on this in any way. We do not know what is true, who offered what, and to whom."

Background:

• On 11 January, it was reported that Ukrainian soldiers had captured two North Korean servicemen in Russia’s Kursk Oblast.
• Special Operations Forces released footage of the capture of one of the North Koreans and his evacuation from Russia. A video of the other was posted by Ukraine’s Air Assault Forces.
• Russian media reported that a fake military ID found on one of the North Korean POWs in Kursk Oblast had been issued in the name of a real person, a resident of Russia's Tuva Republic.
• President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shared the first video of the North Korean soldiers being interrogated and stated that Ukraine is prepared to return them to their home country as part of a prisoner exchange with Russia.

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