Ukraine Hands Over Two North Korean POWs to South Korea

Ukraine handed over to South Korea two North Korean soldiers whom Ukrainian forces had captured during fighting in the Kursk region, Russia.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made this statement on September 23 during his address to the general debate of the 81st session of the UN General Assembly in New York.

One of the North Korean servicemen attempted to take his own life after being captured.

Ukrainian soldiers took two North Korean soldiers prisoner on January 11, 2025, during combat operations in the Kursk region.

The Ukrainian president later said he was ready to hand them over to Kim Jong Un as part of a possible exchange for Ukrainian prisoners of war.

South Korea had previously expressed its readiness to accept North Korean servicemen captured while fighting on Russia’s side in the war.

This is also related to South Korea’s constitutional framework. The country’s fundamental law defines the Korean Peninsula and its adjacent islands as the territory of the Republic of Korea, which affects the legal status of North Korean residents.

North Korean POWs asked to be transferred to South Korea.

Militarnyi previously reported that in April 2026, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un effectively confirmed a policy under which servicemen are expected to avoid capture at the cost of their own lives while participating in Russia’s war against Ukraine.

North Korean POWs

In early 2025, servicemembers of Tactical Group № 84 of the Ukrainian Special Operations Forces, working alongside Air Assault Forces units, captured two North Korean servicemen fighting on Russia’s side in the Kursk region.

This was not the first attempt to capture servicemen from North Korea. At the time, North Korea had not yet officially acknowledged its involvement in the war, so Russian and North Korean troops would typically finish off their wounded and do everything possible to prevent evidence of another country’s involvement in the war against Ukraine from being left behind.

According to the prisoners, they served in the Reconnaissance General Bureau (정찰총국) under the General Staff Department of the Korean People’s Army. One of the prisoners, a 26-year-old serviceman, is named Ri, while the other, a 21-year-old, is Paek. They served as a reconnaissance sniper and a rifleman, respectively.

According to Ri, he arrived in Vladivostok on October 10, 2024. Before that, he and his fellow soldiers spent about a month in Chagang Province, where they helped eliminate the aftermath of flooding.