2 N. Korean captives in Ukraine pled to take them to S. Korea: activist

Two North Korean prisoners of war in Ukraine, captured while fighting for Russia and detained since early 2025, have pleaded with a visiting documentary producer to bring them to South Korea, an activist said Friday.

Jang Se-yul, head of a North Korean defectors' group in South Korea, disclosed the meeting between two North Korean captives in their 20s and a South Korean documentary producer Tuesday at a prisoner camp near Kyiv, where they are currently held.

The North Korean soldiers first came to media attention when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote online in January that they had been captured by Ukrainian forces in Russia's western Kursk region while in battle.

"Please bring (us) to South Korea," Jang quoted them as telling the producer, weeping.

Both of them expressed a desire to go to South Korea, Jang suggested, a change from February, when only one of them had expressed such an intent during a meeting with a South Korean lawmaker.

Provided photos showed that the jaw wound sustained by one of them at the time of capture was now healed, though it left some bone distortion. Otherwise, they appeared to be in a relatively hygienic state.

Hand-drawn portraits of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un were hung on the bed of one of them.

They asked for medicine for eye diseases, knitted clothes, trousers, cigarettes, pens and books via the producer, Jang said, also conveying Ukrainian officials' remarks that they were in a state of psychological instability and had attempted to harm themselves.

Since October last year, North Korea has deployed 15,000 troops to Russia in support of its war with Ukraine.

South Korea has notified the Ukrainian government of its intent to receive the North Korean captives if their intentions were confirmed, but no progress appears to be under way on their transfer.