The release of interviews with North Korean soldiers captured as prisoners of war on the Ukrainian battlefield is causing shockwaves.
I found the testimonies of these two young men so devastating that I replayed them in my mind several times. These young men, who appear barely over twenty, said, “Being alive feels uncomfortable and shameful.” They say that being captured makes them traitors and that they should have somehow found a grenade and blown themselves up. The testimony that a comrade killed by a suicide drone attack—his head and face torn off—had a heart that was still beating served as yet another reminder of war’s horror.
After being wounded and lying collapsed for four days before capture, one tried to end his life by bashing his head against a post. His words—that he felt guilty for not being able to blow himself up if only there had been a grenade or knife nearby—were profoundly shocking.
Could there be any better evidence of the North Korean regime’s evil, which orders soldiers not to become prisoners but to blow themselves up? The statement that if they returned to North Korea, three generations of their families would be wiped out was shocking. The content of their interviews consisted of words and actions that no human being should ever have to speak or perform.
When he entered the military, the last time he saw his mother, she was crying the entire time outside the train window. He said he loved the tofu dishes his mother made, and worried about whether his mother would face consequences because of him. The worry about family, the fear of being sent back to North Korea, and the despair about life were all plainly evident on his youthful face.
“We want to go to South Korea”
Most importantly, they clearly expressed their desire to go to South Korea. They added that their determination was firm and asked for help. Now it is South Korea’s turn to respond to their anguished cries.
The broadcast footage (MBC PD Notebook’s “Russia-Ukraine War and North Korean Troops”) also includes content from a meeting with Ihor Zhovkva, Deputy Head of the Ukrainian Presidential Office. Quoting directly from the interview: “The president has expressed his willingness to conduct consultations and negotiations with the president of the Republic of Korea.” Of course, there was a precondition: “if South Korea helps with the repatriation of Ukrainian prisoners, or has practical dialogue with us in this direction,” but he made clear their willingness to cooperate with our government. This certainly sounds like hope that there is room for negotiation and a thread of solution.
In North Korea right now, they are feverishly working to heroicize war dead from the Russia deployment. Kim Jong Un has ordered the construction of a heroic memorial hall in Pyongyang and is propagandizing his personal direction of commemorative tree planting and even sculpture production. In short, soldiers who blow themselves up in war are heroes, while prisoners are sinners and traitors. If the two young men captured as prisoners in Ukraine are repatriated to North Korea, it is clear that their lives cannot be guaranteed.
For the current administration, which is going all-in on achieving a North-South summit with Kim Jong Un under the principle of “peaceful coexistence and shared prosperity,” it will not be easy to decide on repatriating North Korean military prisoners to South Korea. However, if we consider the most basic duty of a state—that they too are citizens of the Republic of Korea—no other factors can be considered. What greater responsibility does a state have than to save its citizens’ lives? Let us forget politics, ideology, and thought and remember only one thing: their desperate cries saying “Please save us” and “We want to go to the Republic of Korea.”
I hope they can somehow survive and come to know that this world is worth living in, and how precious life is. Please, let’s not allow them to suffer with guilt in a cold prison cell and give up on life. Our government must mobilize all diplomatic efforts to bring them here. We absolutely must do so.
I hope that our proud Republic of Korea will no longer turn away from the reality of young men pushed to the brink of death. Rather than dwelling on the Kim Jong Un regime’s perspective or formal peace discourse, I hope officials will seriously examine and embrace the lives of those for whom existence itself feels like a crime. If you are those who have spoken of the value of “people first,” I earnestly request that you respond to these young men’s voices now.
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