North Korean POWs in Ukraine seeking 'new life' in South

SEOUL, South Korea: Two North Korean prisoners of war held by Ukraine have said they hope to start a “new life” in South Korea, according to a letter seen by AFP on Wednesday.

Previous reports have indicated that the two men, held captive by Kyiv since January after sustaining injuries on the battlefield, were seeking to defect to the South.

But the letter represents the first time the two of them have said so in their own words.

“Thanks to the support of the South Korean people, new dreams and aspirations have begun to take root,” the two soldiers wrote in a letter dated late October to a Seoul-based rights group which shared it with AFP this week.

North Korea has sent thousands of troops to support Russia’s nearly four-year invasion of Ukraine, according to South Korean and Western intelligence agencies.

At least 600 have died and thousands more have sustained injuries, according to South Korean estimates.

Analysts say North Korea is receiving financial aid, military technology and food and energy supplies from Russia in return.

North Korean soldiers are instructed to kill themselves rather than be taken prisoner, according to South Korea’s intelligence service.

In the letter, the two prisoners thanked those working on their behalf “for encouraging us and seeing this situation not as a tragedy but as the beginning of a new life”.

“We firmly believe that we are never alone, and we think of those in South Korea as our own parents and siblings and have decided to go into their embrace,” they wrote.

The letter is signed by the two soldiers, whose names AFP has been asked to withhold to protect their safety.

‘Death sentence’

Under South Korea’s constitution, all Koreans — including those in the North — are considered citizens, and Seoul has said this applies to any troops captured in Ukraine.

The letter was delivered during an interview for a documentary film coordinated by the Gyeore-eol Nation United (GNU) rights group, which works to help North Korean defectors.

That interview took place at an undisclosed facility in Kyiv where the two POWs are being held after they were captured.

During the interview, the pair also pleaded to be sent to the South, according to GNU chief Jang Se-yul, himself a North Korean defector who fled the isolated country in the 2000s.

The video has not yet been made public but is expected to be released next month, Jang said.

Yu Yong-weon, a lawmaker who met with the prisoners during a visit to Ukraine in February, said the prisoners had described witnessing wounded comrades kill themselves with grenades.

Sending the soldiers back to the North would constitute “a death sentence”, Yu said.

South Korea’s foreign ministry has urged Ukraine not to “forcibly repatriate North Korean prisoners of war against their will” and has asked that their desire to go to the South be respected.