Ukraine Transfers Two North Korean POWs to South Korea, Zelenskyy Tells UN

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday that Ukraine has sent two North Korean prisoners of war to South Korea, capping months of consultations between Kyiv and Seoul after the soldiers were captured in Russia's Kursk region in 2025.

Zelenskyy did not elaborate on the timing or route of the transfer. Describing the soldiers' capture, he said such troops are difficult to take alive, recounting that one of the two tried to take his own life upon realising he would be taken prisoner and was shocked that fate did not let him die. He presented the episode as an illustration of how people are raised in the North.

South Korea's Foreign Ministry stopped short of directly confirming Zelenskyy's remarks. It said it had been consulting with Kyiv and other relevant parties to settle the matter in a way that respects the soldiers' free will and complies with international law and humanitarian principles. The ministry declined to disclose the soldiers' disposition, the timing or route of their transfer, or the specifics of its talks with Ukraine, describing these as sensitive details tied to the safety of the soldiers and their families.

The two were among thousands of North Korean troops dispatched to support Russia's war on Ukraine. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has also supplied Moscow with large quantities of weapons, including artillery shells and ballistic missiles, while using his strengthened ties with Russia to accelerate the development of his nuclear-armed military and pursue a more assertive foreign policy that aligns Pyongyang with Moscow and Beijing against Washington. South Korea, the United States and their partners worry that Russia may reciprocate with high-tech transfers capable of advancing North Korea's nuclear and missile programmes.

After the soldiers were captured in Kursk in January 2025, Seoul urged Kyiv not to return them to North Korea, where they could face persecution, and said it was willing to take them in if they wished to resettle in the South. In some media interviews, the soldiers appeared to express a desire to go to South Korea.

In April 2025, North Korea and Russia confirmed that their soldiers had fought side by side to repel a Ukrainian incursion into Russia's Kursk border region. Neither country has disclosed how many North Korean troops were deployed. South Korea's intelligence service estimated that month that about 15,000 North Korean troops had been sent to Russia since October 2024, and that roughly 2,000 of them had been killed.