Ukraine Sent North Korean POWs to South Korea, Zelensky Says

In brief: Zelensky said the two North Korean soldiers captured in 2024 departed for South Korea “recently” during his UN speech on Wednesday. The two initially rejected asylum offered by Seoul but reportedly changed their minds close to a year later, with reports in late 2025 suggesting they wanted to live in South Korea.

Two captured North Korean soldiers have departed for South Korea “recently,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday.

Speaking during the UN General Assembly in New York, Zelensky said the two were “not easy to capture alive.”

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“We recently sent two North Korean prisoners of war to the Republic of Korea. These guys are not easy to capture alive. One of them, realizing he was to be captured, attempted suicide. And he was shocked that fate had not allowed him to die,” Zelensky said.

Frontline reports suggest North Korean troops were encouraged to commit suicide to avoid capture.

Zelensky did not say when they were transferred to South Korea.

Reports from late 2025 suggest the two soldiers – whose names were not publicized – expressed desires to start a “new life” in South Korea in a letter shown by activists, after initially rejecting the offer at the beginning of the year, soon after their capture.

The two were captured in Russia’s Kursk region shortly before their capture was announced on Jan. 11, 2026. Another North Korean soldier was captured earlier by Kyiv in late 2024 but later succumbed to his wounds .

One carried Russian military identity documents, while the other was captured without identification, following reports that Pyongyang troops were issued Russian military IDs in a bid to mask their identities.

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Reports of Pyongyang troop deployments alongside Russian troops began in late 2024, with Moscow initially denying the reports and the two soldiers’ capture before subsequently acknowledging the deployments in April 2025.

In interviews conducted soon after the two were captured, one expressed his desire to visit his widowed mother back , while admitting that he knew little South Korea save for “ South Korea has fewer mountains than North Korea .”

In the summer of 2026, Kyiv has warned of fresh North Korean troop deployments to Russia – numbering 8,500 as of August – with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un pledging continued support for Moscow’s war in Ukraine in September.