On Thursday, the pro-Ukrainian Telegram channel ‘ExileNova’ published a two-minute video titled “Warning from Kursk.” The video shows what is said to be an anonymous and seriously injured man. North Korean soldier who claims to be the only survivor of a 40-man unit that was decimated by a Ukrainian artillery and drone attack in the kursk region of Russia.

The images show the man, lying in a hospital bed, with his head and face wrapped in bandages that appear to be soaked in blood and pus and a nasal catheter secured with another bandage.

Needless to say, the video was quickly collected by other social media outlets that were divided between those pro-Ukrainian sites that said it was genuine and those pro-Kremlin bloggers who said it was false propaganda.

While the Kyiv Post cannot confirm the veracity of the video, it is interesting that the South Korean media Naver News and jongang They say that although it was difficult to understand everything the man said, they both agreed that he spoke with a thick North Korean accent.

In the video he claims that the commander of the Russian unit to which they were assigned lied to him and his comrades, expressed his frustrations with President Putin and urged his compatriots to stay home.”

He said they had been assigned to protect a defensive position somewhere in Kursk where they were told they would be “safe from attack as long as we were in the defensive position… that there would be no need for us to participate on the front line.”

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He said that once his position was attacked by Ukrainian forces, “the Russian army forced us to participate in the (counter)offensive,” which he called the Battle of Kursk. He said there was no plan, stating: “The Russians did not conduct any reconnaissance before the attack and left us without weapons to defend ourselves.”

The man also said, “When Ukraine started attacking, all 40 members of our unit went on the attack, everyone was killed, including my friends Hyuk-cheol and Gyeong-hwan, who had their heads blown off with shrapnel.”

He continued: “I could only survive by hiding under their corpses. My grandfather told me stories about the Fatherland Liberation War (Korean War 1950-53), but I didn’t know it would be like this. In reality, my comrades were simply sacrificed, used as mere fodder…historical material.”

The soldier continued: “The Ukrainian soldiers were well armed with the latest weapons and are highly motivated… but the Russian army has lost too many weapons and equipment, so it simply sends waves of soldiers like us recklessly on the offensive.”

He adds: “I saw mountains of corpses of Russian soldiers with my own eyes, as well as destroyed defensive positions,” before concluding: “This is truly the evil of this world.

“Putin will lose this war.”

Jonas Ohman, head of the Lithuanian non-profit organization (NGO) Blue-Yellow, which provides support to Ukrainian forces in the area, said they had seen North Korean military in Kursk as early as October 25. The JonAng news site said the North Korean soldier was carrying documents identifying him as from the Buryat region, lending weight to earlier suggestions that Russia was hiding the identity of Pyongyang troops.

In an interview on Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr zelenski He said: “So far, North Korean troops have not participated in the battle. They are preparing to attack (in Kursk),” but he said there had been no confirmation of any exchange of fire between Ukrainian and North Korean troops or reports of North Korean casualties. However, he said fighting would soon become a reality “in a matter of days, not weeks or months.”