Zelensky urges China to put pressure on North Korea over troops

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called on China to exert influence on North Korea in response to the deployment of North Korean soldiers alongside Russian troops in the Ukraine war.

"The Korean nation should not lose its people in the battles in Europe. And this can be influenced, particularly by Korea's neighbors, especially China," Zelensky said in his evening video address.

"If China is sincere in its statements that the war should not escalate, it must exert appropriate pressure on Pyongyang," he added. China is the closest ally of the isolated communist country.

Moscow is mainly using the North Korean troops in its attempts to regain the Russian area of Kursk, which is partly occupied by Ukrainian troops, Zelensky said.

"We can see that the Russian military and the North Korean enforcers have no interest in the survival of these Koreans at all," Zelensky continued.

Everything is being done to avoid the Ukrainian military capturing the North Korean soldiers, he said, claiming that the North Korean troops would rather kill each other than be taken prisoner.

This claim could not be independently verified.

North Korea has reportedly sent some 10,000 troops to Russia to support Moscow in its fight against Kiev.

Earlier on Friday, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported that a captured North Korean soldier had died of injuries sustained in combat in Russia.

In his evening address, Zelensky said several North Korean troops had been captured and died of injuries.