A screenshot from a video posted by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on his X account on Jan. 12, 2025, shows a North Korean prisoner of war captured by Ukrainian forces. (X)
The leaders of South Korea and Ukraine agreed to resolve the fate of two North Korean prisoners of war captured in Ukraine in accordance with international law and humanitarian principles, according to South Korea’s presidential office on Wednesday.
Presidents Lee Jae Myung and Volodymyr Zelenskyy discussed the POWs during a meeting at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Ankara, Turkey.
Both leaders agreed to respect the prisoners’ “free will” in determining their future, the South Korean presidential office said in a written briefing.
The briefing did not specify whether the prisoners are seeking to defect to South Korea. The two prisoners in Ukraine are the only known North Koreans captured by Ukraine since the Russian invasion of February 2022.
A screenshot from a video posted by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on his X account on Jan. 12, 2025, shows a North Korean prisoner of war captured by Ukrainian forces. (X)
Zelenskyy announced in January 2025 that Ukrainian forces had captured two North Korean soldiers deployed to Russia’s Kursk region in support of Moscow’s war effort.
On Jan. 12, 2025, he released a video on his X and Facebook accounts showing the wounded soldiers being questioned through an interpreter.
Zelenskyy wrote on X that he was willing to return the soldiers to North Korea in exchange for Ukrainian troops being held by Russia. There may be “other options available” for those who do not wish to return, he said.
“In particular, those who express a desire to bring peace closer by spreading the truth about this war in Korean will be given that opportunity,” he wrote.
In the video, one of the soldiers nodded in agreement when asked whether he wanted to return to the North, while the other said he wanted to stay in Ukraine.
However, the prisoners — identified only by the last names Ri, age 26, and Baek, 21 — told Yu Yong-weon, a lawmaker with South Korea’s ruling People Power Party, on March 4 that they were considering defecting to South Korea, the Chosun Daily reported the following day.
The government will accept all North Korean prisoners of war if they wish to defect to South Korea, according to a transcript of a June 23 briefing by Park Il, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
South Korea has consistently maintained that forcibly repatriating prisoners of war to Russia or North Korea against their will is unacceptable, Park said.
North Korea has deployed an estimated 10,000 to 12,000 troops and supplied weapons to Russia since October 2024 in support of its war against Ukraine, according to intelligence agencies in South Korea, the United States and Ukraine.
In March 2025, Seoul estimated that roughly 4,000 North Korean soldiers had been killed or wounded in the war.
South Korea has condemned North Korea’s participation in the war.
