Zelensky Tells U.N. That Ukraine Sent Two Captured North Korean Soldiers to South Korea

The Prisoners Zelensky Announced Before Seoul Was Ready To

Two North Korean soldiers spent 20 months as prisoners in Ukraine. Now they're in South Korea. President Volodymyr Zelensky told the world so himself, in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly on September 23^[1][2].

South Korea's government has done something unusual in response: nothing, really. It won't confirm the transfer. It won't deny it either^[4][5]. That gap between a public announcement and an official silence is the whole story here.

What Everyone Agrees Happened

The basic facts aren't in dispute. Ukrainian forces captured the two men in Russia's Kursk region in January 2025. They were the first North Korean soldiers taken alive since Pyongyang joined the war^[1]. A South Korean opposition lawmaker says the pair left Ukraine last weekend, traveled through a third country, and arrived in South Korea just days before Zelensky's speech^[1].

South Korea's Foreign Ministry says it worked with Kyiv and "other relevant parties" to find a solution that respects the soldiers' free will and follows international law. It won't say when or how they were moved, citing the safety of the men and their families still in North Korea^[4]. That's consistent with a pledge Seoul made back in June: it would take in any North Korean prisoner of war who fought for Russia, and it opposed sending any of them back to Russia or North Korea^[6].

Zelensky and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung had already discussed the case at a summit in July, agreeing to respect the soldiers' wishes^[9][10]. And this wasn't the first time Zelensky tried to use the two men as leverage. Back in January 2025, right after their capture, he offered to hand them over to Kim Jong Un in a swap for Ukrainian prisoners of war^[11]. That offer went nowhere. This time, the men went to Seoul instead.

Why South Korea Treats Them as Its Own

Here's the piece that makes Seoul's position make sense, even though it looks odd from the outside: South Korea's constitution treats all North Koreans as South Korean citizens. Not immigrants, not refugees — citizens, on paper, since the two Koreas never legally recognized each other as separate countries after the 1950s war. So when Seoul talks about "repatriating" these two men, it's not using the word loosely. Legally, it considers taking them in a duty, not a favor^[3][6].

That legal framing explains why South Korean media reported this so differently from everyone else. The Korea Times wrote that the government had "effectively confirmed" the transfer, even though the ministry never used those words^[4]. SBS ran a headline noting the men arrived "under strict secrecy," only for Zelensky to announce it "to the world^[5]." That's a specific grievance: Seoul wanted to handle a sensitive, security-related move quietly, and Ukraine's president took that choice away from it in front of the U.N.

The reason for the secrecy isn't mysterious. Relatives of defectors who stay in North Korea can face punishment once a family member's departure becomes public. That's the risk Seoul says it's managing by staying vague^[4].

The Announcement Doing More Work Than the Transfer Itself

Zelensky didn't just confirm the transfer at the U.N. — he built an argument around it. He said Kim Jong Un "uses them like currency," trading soldiers for Russian money and military technology. He described one of the two men as having tried to kill himself rather than be captured, saying the soldier was later "shocked that fate did not let him die^[1][7]." The message: North Korea treats its own troops as disposable, and Ukraine, by contrast, let two captives choose their own fate.

That framing serves a clear purpose for Kyiv. Zelensky wants to keep North Korea's role in the war in the headlines, raise the political cost to Pyongyang, and pull South Korea — a wealthy democracy that has so far refused to send weapons directly to Ukraine — closer to his side. A speech at the U.N. General Assembly reaches a bigger audience than a quiet handover ever would^[5][6].

But here's where the story runs ahead of the evidence. The transfer, on its own, tells us nothing new about whether North Korean troops are still fighting in Russia today. The two men were captured 20 months ago. Whatever is happening on the front lines now is a separate question, and one where the evidence is thinner and comes mostly from a single, interested source: Ukrainian intelligence^[3][8].

What We Actually Know About North Korea's Role Now

So what is the current picture? In August, Ukraine's military intelligence said about 8,500 North Korean troops were in Russia, including a drone unit, and that Pyongyang could be asked to send up to 50,000 more^[8][13]. Those numbers come from one Ukrainian general, and no outside source has confirmed them independently^[8].

Other estimates, from less interested parties, paint a picture of heavy losses already absorbed. Britain's government assessed that North Korean forces "highly likely" suffered more than 6,000 casualties fighting in Kursk. South Korea's National Intelligence Service gave a similar figure^[15]. Media reports put the number of North Korean troops in Kursk at close to 11,000 at the start of 2026^[16] — meaning, if those figures both hold, well over half of that force may have already been killed or wounded.

None of this is confirmed by the two governments most directly involved. North Korea and Russia signed a mutual defense pact in 2024, and Pyongyang has sent troops to help Russia since late that year^[8]. But as of September 24, neither government had said a word publicly about the prisoner transfer^[3].

A Story With Two Governments Staying Quiet

Zoom out, and the pressures pulling on each side are fairly plain. Ukraine wants attention, allies, and a reason for South Korea to get more involved. South Korea wants to honor a legal and humanitarian commitment to people it considers its own citizens, without provoking Pyongyang or exposing families still living under it^[4][6]. North Korea and Russia, for their part, have their own case available to them, even if they haven't made it publicly: Kursk is Russian territory that Ukraine invaded in 2024, and their 2024 defense treaty could be framed as backing an ally rather than joining a war of conquest.

The coverage split along fairly predictable lines. Wire services like the Associated Press and Reuters led with neutral, attributed headlines — "Zelenskyy says," "Zelenskiy says" — and largely stuck to what could be sourced^[1][2]. Al Jazeera filed the story under its "Kim Jong Un News" tag, subtly making it a story about Pyongyang rather than Kyiv or Seoul^[3]. U.S. right-leaning outlets mostly ran wire copy without adding their own reporting, since the story carries no obvious domestic political angle. South Korean outlets, closest to the story and most affected by how it plays out, were the ones most willing to push past the ministry's careful non-answer and call it what they believed it was.

Two men who spent 20 months as prisoners are now, by every account but an official one, home. Whether North Korea's fighting force in Russia is growing, shrinking, or holding steady is a question this story never actually answers.