North Korean POWs: Political pawns in Russia’s war in Ukraine? | | Kim Jong Un

In January 2025, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced to the world that he had captured two North Korean soldiers.

It was the first hard evidence that Kim Jong Un secretly sent 15,000 special forces to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in exchange for billions of dollars worth of military technology and money for Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.

But posting pictures of POWs on the Internet and opening their prison doors to the media has sparked panic, with international human rights organizations arguing that such exposure violates the Geneva Conventions and puts North Korean soldiers and their families at grave risk.

As Russia’s war on Ukraine continues, 101 East investigates whether North Korean POWs are being used as political pawns and the difficulty of bringing them to safety in South Korea.