RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE
Putin honors soldier from viral Ukraine knife fight
President Vladimir Putian has awarded the title ‘Hero of Russia’ to a soldier who defeated a Ukrainian service member in a brutal knife fight that went viral online.
Andrey Grigoryev was decorated for “bravery and heroism” in combat, according to the presidential decree published on Saturday.
A corporal with the 39th Motorized Rifle Brigade, Grigoryev overpowered a Ukrainian soldier during a battle near the village of Trudovoye in Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic.
Although the incident took place in the fall of 2024, the dramatic bodycam footage of the hand-to-hand combat was only recently posted to social media.
Although the opponent was physically stronger and had managed to wound Grigoryev, the Russian soldier kept on fighting.
“It was clear to me that I was not going to surrender, that I would take at least one person to the grave [before dying myself]. This motivation helped me a lot to concentrate,”Grigoryev told RT earlier this month.
Grigoryev was born in Russia’s Siberian Sakha Republic and worked as a driver and a mechanic before enlisting in the army in April 2024. He is married with five children.
Sakha Governor Aysen Nikolayev met with Grigoryev on Saturday and gave him a new knife as a gift. “After that fight, Andrey had spent several days behind enemy lines. They neutralized several enemy soldiers, armored vehicles, and blew up an ammunition depot,”Nikolayev said.
WESTERN PERSPECTIVE
Ukraine captures two North Korean soldiers in Kursk, Zelenskiy says
Ukraine has captured two North Korean soldiers in Russia's Kursk region, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday, the first time Ukraine has announced the capture of North Korean soldiers alive since their entry into the war last autumn.
North Korean regular troops entered the war on Russia's side in October, according to Kyiv and its western allies, who initially estimated their numbers at 10,000 or more.
In a post on X, Zelenskiy said that the soldiers had been brought to Kyiv and were communicating with the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the country's domestic intelligence agency.
"As with all prisoners of war, these two North Korean soldiers are receiving the necessary medical assistance," Zelenskiy said. He said that journalists would be given access to speak to them.
Kyiv says that North Korean troops are fighting in the Kursk region, where Ukraine launched an incursion in August. Kyiv says it still controls several hundred square kilometres of territory there.
Pyongyang has also been supplying Russia with vast quantities of artillery shells, according to Kyiv and its western allies.
Russia has neither confirmed nor denied the presence of North Korean troops in Kursk, and there was no immediate reaction from Moscow or Pyongyang to the latest report.
Ukraine had previously said it captured North Korean soldiers in combat, but that they had been badly wounded and died shortly afterwards.
SPECIAL FORCES OPERATION
Zelenskiy said in a later video address that the troops had been captured by Ukraine's special forces working alongside paratroopers.
The special forces posted a video filmed from a drone claiming to show part of the operation. It showed five men in ghillie suits in a forested area, although other details were hard to make out.
A video posted by the SBU appeared to show the two captured men. One had his jaw bandaged due to an apparent wound, while the other was drinking through a straw.
A doctor interviewed for the SBU’s video, who was not named and had his face blurred, said one of the soldiers had a facial wound and would be treated by a dentist, while the other soldier had an open wound and a lower leg fracture.
The SBU said the North Koreans had been transferred to Kyiv for questioning, and that because they could not speak Ukrainian, Russian or English, their questioning was being done in Korean with the help of South Korea's NIS intelligence agency.
The SBU said one of the soldiers had been captured with a Russian military document with the name of another person registered in Russia, while the other did not have any documents.
The agency said the soldiers had been born in 2005 and 1999, and had been serving in the North Korean armed forces since 2021 and 2016 respectively.
The SBU said the two prisoners were being held in conditions that were in accordance with international law, and that a criminal investigation was being conducted to see if the men broke Ukraine's law against planning or conducting a war.
RT/Reuters
