Zelensky proposes exchanging North Korean POWs for Ukrainian troops held by Russia

Kyiv is prepared to hand over captured North Korean soldiers to Pyongyang if North Korean leader Kim Jong Un organizes their exchange for Ukrainian troops held in Russian captivity, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his daily address on Sunday.

For North Korean soldiers who don’t want to return, “other options may exist,” Zelensky said. “In particular, those Koreans who express a desire to promote peace by spreading the Korean truth about this war will have such an opportunity,” he said.

Zelensky also said that “in addition to the initially captured North Korean soldiers, there will undoubtedly be others,” adding that this is only a “matter of time.”

Additionally, the Ukrainian president posted a video showing the interrogation of wounded soldiers purportedly from North Korea. When asked whether he knows where he is and that he was fighting against Ukraine, one man responds that he doesn’t know and that his commanders told him it was just a training exercise. A second soldier says he has a family but that they don’t know where he is. Both are asked if they want to return to North Korea; one responds that he does, while the other says he wants to live in Ukraine.

According to South Korean intelligence, about 300 North Korean troops have been killed and about 2,700 have been wounded in the war against Ukraine.