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North Korean prisoner in Ukraine seeks defection to South Korea
A second North Korean soldier captured in Ukraine has expressed his intention to defect to South Korea, according to an organization that assists North Korean escapees.
The South Korean Constitution grants citizenship to all Koreans, including those from the North — a principle that Seoul says also applies to North Korean prisoners of war detained in Ukraine.
According to Jang Se-yul, director of the NGO Gyeore-eol Nation United, the two prisoners conveyed their wish during an interview recorded in Kyiv on October 28, at an undisclosed location where they are being held. “At the end of the interview, both men begged to be taken to the South,” Jang told AFP, adding that the footage will be released in the coming weeks.
One of the prisoners had already voiced his desire for “a normal life” in South Korea during an earlier meeting with a South Korean lawmaker in February. He reiterated the same wish in the latest interview, supported by his fellow captive.
South Korean and Western intelligence services estimate that more than 10,000 North Korean soldiers were sent to Russia in 2024, mainly in the Kursk region, to support Moscow’s war efforts in Ukraine.
Returning the prisoners to Pyongyang would amount to a death sentence, warned South Korean lawmaker Yu Yong-weon, noting that captured North Korean troops are often ordered to commit suicide rather than surrender.
Pyongyang only admitted in April that it had deployed troops to Russia, acknowledging that some were killed in combat. Seoul’s intelligence, however, estimates the number of North Korean soldiers killed at around 2,000.
