A North Korean soldier fighting on behalf of Russia was captured by Ukrainian forces, South Korean intelligence confirmed on Friday.

The soldier is the first reported North Korean prisoner of war since Pyongyang deployed thousands of troops to Russia in late October to reinforce Moscow’s forces in the Kursk border region.

Seoul later said that the unnamed soldier had died “due to his worsening wounds”.

An unverified photo of the captured soldier, who appeared to be wounded, was circulated on social media on Thursday night.

“Through real-time information sharing with an allied country’s intelligence agency, it has been confirmed that one injured North Korean soldier has been captured,” South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said on Friday.

The North Korean soldier was captured alive by the Ukrainian army on Thursday, a South Korean intelligence source told AFP news agency, adding that the location where he was seized was not known.

It comes after Volodymyr Zelensky said earlier this week that nearly 3,000 North Korean troops had been “killed or wounded” since they joined Russian troops in combat.

Seoul’s previous estimate put the number of killed or wounded North Koreans at 1,100.