Ukraine’s president is offering a prisoner swap with North Korean soldiers it has captured, in exchange for Ukrainians held by Russia.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made a direct appeal to leader Kim Jong Un after seizing two North Koreans in Russia’s Kursk region.

“In addition to the first captured soldiers from North Korea, there will undoubtedly be more. It’s only a matter of time before our troops manage to capture others,” he said in a video posted on X.

His video also included an offer of help to officials in California fighting the ongoing fires there.

It is the first time Ukraine has announced the capture of North Korean soldiers since their entry into the nearly three-year-old war last autumn.

Ukrainian and Western assessments say that some 11,000 troops from Russia‘s ally North Korea have been deployed in the Kursk region to support Moscow’s forces, although Russia has neither confirmed nor denied their presence.

Mr Zelenskyy has said Russian and North Korean forces had suffered heavy losses.

“Ukraine is ready to hand over Kim Jong Un’s soldiers to him if he can organise their exchange for our warriors who are being held captive in Russia,” Mr Zelenskyy added.

He posted a short video showing the interrogation of two men, presented as North Korean soldiers.

One of them is lying on a bed with bandaged hands, the other is sitting with a bandage on his jaw.

One of the men said through an interpreter that he did not know he was fighting against Ukraine and had been told he was on a training exercise. He said he hid in a shelter during the offensive and was found a couple of days later.

He said that if he was ordered to return to North Korea, he would, but he was ready to stay in Ukraine if given the chance.

Read more from Sky News:
Footage reveals shocking moment 80-year-old is shot in IDF raid
Is Bezos chasing down Musk in billionaire space race?

Sky News has not been able to verify the video.

“One of them (soldiers) expressed a desire to stay in Ukraine, the other to return to Korea,” said Mr Zelenskyy, adding that for North Korean soldiers who did not wish to return home, there may be other options available.

Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin is set for the inaugural launch of its new space rocket on Monday in a development that could add more fuel to the billionaire space race.

The New Glenn rocket is due to blast off from Cape Canaveral – the result of a multi-billion dollar, decade-long effort that could set the stage for Amazon’s satellite constellation venture and dent Elon Musk’s market share.

Mr Musk’s SpaceX has dominated the scene for many years but both Mr Bezos and Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson have designs on outer space… and the wealth tied up in its exploration.

Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin

“Ever since I was five years old, I’ve dreamed of traveling to space,” Mr Bezos said ahead of his journey to the edge of space in 2021.

He founded the Blue Origin venture with the aim of having “millions of people working and living in space”.

For years it has launched – and landed – its reusable New Shepard rocket to and from the brim of Earth’s atmosphere, but has never sent anything into orbit. That could all change on Monday.

Blue Origin will be hoping its New Glenn rocket will be able to compete with SpaceX’s Falcon 9, the world’s most active rocket.

Compared to Mr Musk’s Falcon 9, the New Glenn is about twice as powerful and its payload bay diameter is two times larger in order to fit bigger batches of satellites.

The upcoming launch is also a key certification flight required by the US Space Force before New Glenn can launch national security payloads as part of multi-billion dollar government tenders Blue Origin hopes to win.

Elon Musk and SpaceX

“I want to die on Mars – just not on impact,” Elon Musk once quipped.

The Donald Trump ally, who is frequently pictured wearing an “Occupy Mars” shirt, has enjoyed relative dominance of the private space industry through his company SpaceX.

Back in 2016, Mr Musk outlined his vision of building a colony on Mars “in our lifetimes” – with the first rocket propelling humans to the Red Planet by 2025, though this deadline does not appear likely to be met.

For many years the company used an image of the Martian surface being terraformed (turned Earth-like) in its promotional material. However, a NASA-sponsored study published in 2018 dismissed these plans as impossible with the technology available then.

SpaceX missions have included both US government contracts and launching the company’s Starlink satellite internet network.

And while Mr Bezos’ New Glenn rocket is much more powerful than the successful Falcon 9, SpaceX’s next-generation Starship, a fully reusable rocket system currently in development, would be more powerful still.

Mr Musk sees Starship as crucial to expanding Starlink’s footprint in orbit. Its next test flight is expected later this month and will involve deploying mock satellites.

Read more:
NASA astronauts stuck in space ‘don’t feel like castaways’
Spacecraft survives closest-ever approach to the sun

Sir Richard Branson and Virgin Galactic

Also seeking a stake in the upper atmosphere is Virgin founder Sir Richard, whose Virgin Galactic effort took its first tourists to the edge of space in 2023.

The crew took the passengers about 55 miles (88km) above Earth where they experienced zero gravity during the flight which lasted just over an hour.

“My mum taught me to never give up and to reach for the stars,” the British billionaire once said.

The company is currently taking a pause from flights as it develops new space vehicles, Forbes reported in October last year.

Its new fleet of Delta vehicles are scheduled to resume commercial spaceflight by 2026.

On 19 December, 80-year-old Palestinian grandmother Halima Abu Leil was shot in an Israel Defence Forces (IDF) raid on her neighbourhood in Balata refugee camp in Nablus, West Bank.

Two days later, Halima’s children told Sky News their mother was shot six times by Israeli special forces on her way to buy groceries. She died soon after.

Warning this piece includes an image from CCTV of the moment Halima Abu Leil was shot.

“They could see she is an elderly lady but they shot her six times – in her leg, in her chest. When she was first shot in her legs, she knelt on the ground,” her daughter said.

Newly released grainy CCTV footage shows the moment she was shot and reveals that a van marked as an ambulance was used during the surprise IDF raid.

Halima Abu Leil’s family want the footage to be seen.

Sky News’ Data & Forensics unit has analysed the CCTV and geolocated the street where the video was filmed. It is the exact location Halima’s son told us she “fell to her knees” as she was shot.

READ MORE: Grandmother shot six times by IDF during raid, son says

In the video, we see Halima turn into the street.

Three men are also walking down the street. There is no visible contact between them and Halima. Based on our analysis of their silhouettes, the figure in the middle appears to be holding a weapon. They are likely to be neighbourhood militants.

The three men veer to the right, moving into a sunny area. One takes a seat on some stairs, while the other two stand. They join someone sitting there already.

A few yards away, Halima stops in the middle of the street to speak to another woman with a shopping trolley.

An ambulance pulls into vision, separating the two women, and drives slowly down the street. A white van pulls in behind the medical vehicle.

A few moments later, the passenger door of the white van opens and a faint cloud of smoke is visible, suggesting that a gunshot is fired.

This is the moment Halima falls to her knees.

The men, some of them armed, scatter to the right and left into alleyways along with other people in the street.

A detailed analysis of the footage suggests that visible clouds of smoke on the walls are the result of multiple shots. The footage and imagery we gathered from the site of the killing shows bullet holes in the building next to where Halima was standing.

The woman she was speaking to moments earlier takes cover in a doorway.

At the same time, figures who appear to be Israeli military forces exit the ambulance in the foreground. They are equipped with helmets, backpacks, rifles, and other gear.

Armed figures can also be seen leaving the white van in the background. They are seen aiming their weapons down the street.

Halima appears to get hit again and collapses to the floor. The men likely to be neighbourhood militants are not visibly present in the street when this happens.

At the time of our previous report, the IDF said they had conducted “counterterrorism activity” in Balata camp the morning Halima was killed.

We approached the IDF about the CCTV footage and the use of a medical vehicle to conduct their operation.

This was its response: “The IDF is committed to and operates in accordance with international law. The mentioned incident is under review. The review will examine the use of the vehicle shown in the video and the claims of harm to uninvolved individuals during the exchange of fire between the terrorists and our forces.”

The use of a marked medical vehicle for a security operation could be a contravention of the Geneva Convention and a war crime – as well as Halima’s killing.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on occupied Palestinian territory Francesca Albanese watched the CCTV video and told Sky News she was shocked but not surprised.

She says: “When I look at the footage, what emerges prima facie is that there were no precautions taken – within these operations whose legality is debatable – to avoid or spare civilian life. No principle of proportionality because there was wildfire directed at the identified target and ultimately no respect for the principle of distinction.

“So this was a murder in cold blood and could be a war crime as an extrajudicial killing.”

According to the United Nations Office of Human Rights in occupied Palestinian territory (OHCHR oPt), Israeli security forces and settlers have killed at least 813 mostly unarmed Palestinians, including 15 women and 177 children, since 7 October 2023.

In a statement to Sky News regarding Halima’s killing, the OHCHR oPT said: “Any deliberate killing by Israeli security forces of Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank who do not pose an imminent threat to life is unlawful under international human rights law and a war crime in the context of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territory.

“This incident must be investigated independently, effectively, thoroughly, and transparently. If there is evidence of violations of the applicable law enforcement standards, those responsible must be held to account.”

Sophie Alexander, international affairs producer, and Michelle Inez Simon, visual investigations producer, contributed reporting.

The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.