North Korean captives who fought against Ukraine express desire to move to South Korea
Two North Korean prisoners of war captured by the Defense Forces in Russia's Kursk region wrote a letter expressing their wish to leave North Korea and relocate to South Korea.
According to Ukrinform, the Yonhap news agency stated this in an article.
"Two North Korean soldiers who were captured in Ukraine while fighting for Russia have written a letter expressing their desire to defect to South Korea," the report said.
Jang Se-yul, head of a North Korean defectors' group in the South, said the two North Korean captives in their 20s wrote such a letter in October when they met a South Korean documentary producer at a prisoner-of-war camp near Kyiv. The letter was delivered to the group via the producer earlier this month.
"We've made up our mind to go to South Korea, thinking of those in South Korea as our parents and brothers," the letter reads.
In the letter, the captives expressed gratitude to those who told them that their current situation was "not a tragedy but the beginning of a new life."
"A new dream and aspiration have begun springing up on the back of support from people in the Republic of Korea," the prisoners wrote.
Jang Se-yul said the letter confirms their desire to relocate to South Korea.
As Ukrinform previously reported, on January 11 it became known that Ukrainian soldiers in the Kursk region had captured two soldiers from North Korea.
One of them later said that commanders forbid North Korean soldiers from surrendering. He also noted that he has no intention of returning home and would like to move to South Korea to study at a university.