Kyiv signing and Kursk captives: 16 January 2025 in Ukraine
A retrospective on a day when a British prime minister arrived in Kyiv to sign a 100-year agreement, days after Ukraine announced the capture of two North Korean soldiers.
What did Ukraine's partners and adversaries signal on 16 January 2025? On that day, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer visited Kyiv to sign a 100-year agreement with Ukraine, intended to formalise British economic and military support for the country.
The length of the commitment was the notable feature. A century-long framework puts the relationship on a footing meant to outlast any single political cycle, and it covers both the economic and the military dimensions of British support. The visit itself, made in person to the capital, underlined that intent.
The battlefield backdrop
Five days earlier, on 11 January 2025, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that Ukraine had captured two North Korean soldiers in Kursk Oblast, Russia. They were in healthy condition, and it was the first time Ukraine had taken North Korean soldiers alive since North Korea entered the war. Two earlier North Korean prisoners of war had died of their injuries shortly after capture.
The announcement placed a third state directly on the battlefield. North Korea's support for Russia was not new: it had backed Moscow since 2017, when it recognised the 2014 annexation of Crimea. In July 2022 it recognised the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, and Ukraine responded by severing diplomatic ties.
Why the two events sit together
Taken together, the two developments showed the widening web of alignments around the war. One side was formalising long-term support from the United Kingdom; the other was drawing on soldiers from North Korea. For Kyiv, the Kursk captures offered a rare tangible sign of that foreign involvement, while the signing offered a lasting commitment from a European partner.
