OPEN LETTER: These North Korean soldiers who want to choose their own fate

Captured soldiers and a historic decision

On June 23, 2026, South Korea announced that it would accept all North Korean prisoners of war captured by Ukraine on Ukrainian territory, if those prisoners express a wish to go to Seoul. Not forced repatriation. Not automatic return to Russia. A choice. The decision was announced by the South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lee Jae-won, and it rests on a straightforward legal foundation: the South Korean constitution considers the entire Korean Peninsula to be its territory — which means every North Korean citizen is, legally, also a South Korean citizen.

Kim Jong-un sent between 14,000 and 15,000 North Korean soldiers to Russia at the end of 2024. By spring 2026, approximately 7,000 of them had been killed or wounded — 2,251 killed, 4,807 wounded. Two were captured alive in January 2025 in the Kursk region. In December 2025, these two men expressed a wish to go to South Korea. Russia asked twice that Ukraine hand them over. Ukraine declined both times. Ukraine-South Korea foreign ministerial talks were scheduled for June 30, 2026 in Seoul, specifically to define a legal transfer mechanism.

You were sent to Kursk under the pretense of military training. You found yourself in a war. You fought in trenches for a cause that was not yours, in a country whose name you perhaps barely knew. And now a door is opening. Not a propaganda trap — a legal door, backed by a constitution, by international law, by a country that is waiting for you. This letter is addressed to you.

A massive deployment and its human consequences

The deployment of North Korean troops to Russia in support of Putin's war against Ukraine is one of the most extraordinary facts of this conflict. Kim Jong-un sent soldiers to die in European trenches in exchange for Russian military technology — ballistic missiles, satellites, submarine capabilities. The exchange is documented. The casualties are documented. The two survivors captured in Kursk are documented. These are not intelligence rumors — they are confirmed realities, corroborated by multiple independent sources including Ukrainian military intelligence and Western security services.

What is less documented is what these soldiers were told. What they were promised. What they knew about where they were going and why. The two captured soldiers, interviewed after their capture in January 2025, provided testimony that Ukrainian authorities described as significant. Russia pushed twice to have them returned — an insistence that is unique among all foreign fighters captured in this conflict. That insistence alone says something: these men know things that someone does not want them to say publicly.

Kim Jong-un gave orders that his soldiers should commit suicide rather than allow themselves to be captured. That is not a military doctrine — that is treating human beings as single-use ammunition. A soldier who dies leaves no testimony. A soldier who is captured can speak. And what Kim fears, above all else, is that these soldiers speak.

The non-refoulement principle and its implications

The non-refoulement principle — one of the foundational pillars of international refugee law — prohibits returning a person to a country where they risk persecution, torture, or death. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk stated on May 13, 2026 that this principle applies to North Korean prisoners of war captured in Ukraine. Sending them back to North Korea — where having been captured rather than dying would be treated as treason — would expose them to execution or forced labor. The principle is clear. The legal framework exists.

Seoul's June 23 announcement goes one step further: not only will South Korea refuse to accept forced repatriation, it actively declares itself ready to welcome these men. Ukraine ambassador to Seoul Dmytro Ponomarenko had stated in February 2025 that Ukraine was open to dialogue on a possible third-country transfer if the soldiers expressed that wish. The framework exists. The will exists. What is missing is the precise mechanism — which the June 30 talks were intended to define.

The Geneva Conventions were not written in anticipation of this exact situation. No legal text imagined that North Korean soldiers would one day be captured in Ukrainian trenches while fighting for Russia. This legal void is not a failure of international law — it is a challenge to which international law must adapt. And that adaptation is currently underway. The void itself condemns the Kim-Putin system for creating it.

The complexity of international humanitarian law

The situation places Ukraine before a genuine legal challenge. Under the Geneva Conventions, prisoners of war must be treated with dignity and repatriated at the end of hostilities. But the North Korean soldiers' case is unique: their government ordered them to die rather than surrender. Their country does not acknowledge the conflict. They have no consular protection. Repatriation to North Korea or even to Russia — at Kim's request — is not repatriation within the spirit of the Conventions. It is delivery to certain punishment.

Ukraine respects humanitarian law precisely because Russia does not. This distinction is not rhetorical — it is strategic. Every Ukrainian decision that demonstrates respect for international norms strengthens Ukraine's diplomatic position, its access to Western support, and the moral argument it makes to the world. Taking time to protect the rights of soldiers sent to destroy it is not weakness. It is a definition of civilization in action, documented for the historical record.

One of the most remarkable acts of this war: a nation fighting for its survival takes the time to think carefully about the rights of soldiers sent to destroy it. Not because it is easy. Not because it is popular. Because it is right. And because the gap between what Ukraine does and what Russia does is itself a weapon — a moral weapon that reverberates in every Western capital.

Living witnesses who could speak

Pyongyang's order to commit suicide rather than be captured was not born of military doctrine. It was born of fear. Fear of living witnesses who could testify — about the conditions of deployment, about what these soldiers were told, about the reality of the Kim-Putin alliance seen from the perspective of those who paid for it with their bodies. A soldier who speaks is a weapon that Pyongyang cannot control.

Russia has been largely silent on other foreign fighters captured in this conflict. It has not insisted on their return. The singular insistence on the two North Korean soldiers — twice demanding their return — was made at Kim's request, according to sources cited by Ukrainian Pravda. The goal is clear: prevent testimony that could damage the strategic partnership that both regimes need. A prisoner who stays silent — by death, by repatriation, by isolation — is a prisoner who cannot testify against the system.

A prisoner who speaks is a weapon. South Korea's decision partially neutralizes Kim's order: being captured is no longer necessarily a condemnation. It can be a survival option. The moment these soldiers understand that surrender can lead to Seoul rather than a firing squad, the calculation on the front line changes. Not for all of them. But possibly for some. And some is already significant.

A reception system that already exists

South Korea already receives thousands of North Korean defectors each year — most through China and neighboring countries. The Hanawon program provides linguistic integration, psychological support, vocational training, and social reintegration for new arrivals. The framework is not theoretical — it has been tested, refined, and expanded over decades. What the June 23 decision does is extend this framework to a new category: prisoners of war captured in a third country.

This extension fundamentally changes the calculation for North Korean soldiers still on the front. Until now, the choice was: fight and die, or be captured and face either repatriation to a regime that will execute you or indefinite legal limbo. Now there is a third option: capture as a path to a new life. This option cannot be broadcast to soldiers currently in Russian trenches. But the mere fact that it exists — that Seoul has stated it publicly — means it will reach some of those soldiers through the channels that information always finds, however restricted.

If even one soldier captured in Ukraine testifies publicly about the conditions of his deployment — what he was told, what he saw, what he experienced — it is worth hundreds of diplomatic communiqués. Testimony is the most durable form of evidence. It has a face, a voice, a story. It cannot be denied by a press secretary or neutralized by a veto at the Security Council. It simply exists, permanently, in the historical record.

A strategic partnership laid bare

The deployment of North Korean troops to Russia violates UN Security Council resolutions prohibiting military cooperation with North Korea. It constitutes direct third-party interference in the conflict. Russia, as a permanent member of the Security Council, blocks any resolution that could sanction Pyongyang for this cooperation. The result is institutional paralysis — but the paralysis does not erase the documented reality.

South Korea has provided defense equipment to Ukraine since 2024, recognizing that a Russian victory would increase the military technology that Moscow can offer Kim. It is a NATO partner by industrial capacity. By stating it will accept these prisoners, South Korea sends a message that goes beyond humanitarian law: this conflict is global, not only European. The Kim-Putin alliance has a direct cost for the security of the Korean Peninsula, and Seoul intends to document it publicly, one prisoner at a time.

When South Korea says "we will take these men," it also says: "we document your illegal military alliance." Each North Korean prisoner of war accepted in Seoul is one more piece of evidence of a partnership that violates international norms. It is not only a humanitarian act — it is a diplomatic act. And Pyongyang knows it, which is precisely why it fears it.

The urgency of a clear legal mechanism

To President Zelensky and the ministers meeting in Seoul on June 30: find the mechanism. International humanitarian law is complex, but it was not written to prevent men from choosing their own lives. The legal framework for third-country transfer of prisoners of war exists — it requires political will and a bilateral agreement that respects both Ukrainian law and South Korean constitutional provisions. The talks on June 30 are the right moment to formalize what has already been stated publicly by both sides.

What this decision says to history

History will remember nations that chose dignity over convenience. South Korea's decision to open its doors, without conditions, without pressure, without political calculation against human lives — this is a decision that deserves to be recorded. And to the international community watching this situation: support the mechanism. Do not allow diplomatic complexity to become an obstacle to a humanitarian outcome that international law already authorizes and human dignity demands.

To the North Korean soldiers who survived the trenches of Kursk, who endured what no soldier should endure: South Korea is waiting for you. Not as a propaganda stunt. Not as a political maneuver. As a country whose constitution says you are its citizens, whose laws say you have rights, and whose integration programs say you can build a new life. This is not a trap. This is a door. You decide whether to open it.

International law in service of individuals

Kim and Putin vs. Ukraine and South Korea: the contrast could not be starker. On one side, a system that sends its own citizens to die in foreign trenches and orders them to kill themselves rather than speak. On the other, two democracies working to find a legal framework so that those same citizens can exercise a right that their regime denies them: the right to choose. The question that this contrast poses to the international community is simple. What can you offer these men that we cannot give them?

A signal for all soldiers still at the front

To all North Korean soldiers still in Ukrainian trenches or on the plains of Kursk: an alternative exists. It is difficult to reach. It requires courage and a series of circumstances out of your control. But the mere fact that an alternative exists — that a country has stated publicly and legally that it will welcome you — is in itself a revolutionary fact. In one of the most hermetically sealed regimes on earth, every crack in the wall of inevitability matters.

History may one day record that North Korean soldiers captured in Ukraine contributed — by their testimony, by their survival, by their choice — to cracking the most hermetic regime on the planet. Invisible agents of change, sent to die, who instead chose to speak. The June 23, 2026 decision by Seoul made that possibility real. That is not nothing. That is, perhaps, a great deal.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a columnist and analyst. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. I claim analytical clarity, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

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