What the capture of two North Korean soldiers meant for Kyiv
A look back at the Kursk Oblast captures announced on 11 January 2025, and a Baltic power-grid security move days earlier.
What did Ukraine's announcement about captured North Korean soldiers add to the war picture as of 14 January 2025? The announcement itself had come three days earlier, on 11 January 2025, and it was still the most notable development in the coverage of that period.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine had captured two North Korean soldiers in Kursk Oblast, Russia. It was reported as the first time since North Korea entered the war that such prisoners had been taken in healthy condition. The two North Korean prisoners of war taken previously had died of their injuries shortly after capture.
The announcement sat within a longer relationship. North Korea has supported Russia in the war since 2017, when it recognised the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea. In July 2022 it recognised the Russia-backed, self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, and Ukraine responded by severing diplomatic ties with Pyongyang.
Security of the Baltic grid
A separate regional story had unfolded on 8 January 2025. Lithuanian prime minister Gintautas Paluckas deployed police to secure the country's electricity link with Poland. The step came in response to reported attempts to disrupt the planned decoupling of the Baltic states' power systems from the grid shared with Belarus and Russia.
The two items, one on the battlefield in Kursk Oblast and one on energy infrastructure in Lithuania, were separate events, but both formed part of the news around Russia's war and its neighbours in mid-January 2025.
