Captured North Koreans don’t want asylum in S. Korea: Seoul

The two North Korean soldiers captured by Ukraine have expressed no desire to seek asylum in South Korea, Seoul’s National Intelligence Agency (NIS) said on Monday.

DPRK (North Korean) troops began helping Moscow retake the Kursk region from Ukrainian control in late 2024, with Seoul saying on Monday that around 300 people had been killed alongside thousands injured.

Of the two DPRK soldiers captured by kyiv, one previously expressed a desire to return to North Korea, while the other wanted to stay in Ukraine, according to previous interviews with the soldiers conducted in Korean and published by the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The NIS told South Korean lawmakers in a closed-door briefing Monday that it participated in the interrogation of the two North Korean troops, during which both expressed no desire to do so. defection, two lawmakers at the meeting told AP News.

Koo Byoung-sam, a spokesperson for South Korea’s Unification Ministry, told AP News that even if both men had wanted to defect, there is currently no legal basis to facilitate the process.

“There is nothing we can say at this stage,” Koo said, adding that it would require “legal reviews, including on international law, and consultations with relevant countries” if North Korean troops captured by Ukraine instead wanted to be extradited to South Korea.

Zelensky said in a social media update on Sunday that kyiv was ready to talk with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to exchange captured North Koreans with Ukrainian troops held captive by Russia.

Lee Seong-kweun, one of the lawmakers who attended the news conference, told AP News that North Korean troops are fighting drones and other elements of modern warfare, and are often dispatched for “meat assaults” by Russian commanders without rear support.

Lee, quoting the statement, said Pyongyang troops were also instructed to commit suicide to prevent capture, based on memos found on dead North Korean soldiers.

According to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the agency responsible for the interrogation, the first soldier was captured in the Kursk region on January 9 by the 84th tactical group of Ukraine’s special operations forces (SSO), and the second by Ukrainian paratroopers.

kyiv captured its first North Korean troop in late December, but they quickly succumbed to their wounds.

The SBU said in its press release on Saturday that both had been transferred to kyiv for “urgent investigative measures”.

One of them had a Russian-issued military ID card from the Russian republic of Tuva, while the other had no documents at the time of his capture, the SBU said.

Possession of a Russian-issued ID is consistent with early reports from when the North Korean troop deployment was first known. These IDs were thought to be a way to conceal North Korea’s involvement in Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The SBU said the two captured soldiers “do not speak Ukrainian, English or Russian” and that the interrogation was carried out “through Korean translators in cooperation with South Korean intelligence services.”