The offer comes after Ukraine announced the capture of two North Korean soldiers in Russia’s Kursk region.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said kyiv was “ready to hand over” captured North Korean soldiers in exchange for Ukrainian prisoners of war held in Russia.
Sunday’s offer came hours after South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) confirmed Ukraine’s announcement that it had captured two North Korean soldiers in Russia’s Kursk region.
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The Ukrainian leader said there would “undoubtedly be more” North Korean soldiers captured in combat. “It is only a matter of time before our troops manage to capture more,” he said.
Ukraine said Saturday that the two soldiers were injured while fighting its troops in Russia’s Kursk region. This is the first time kyiv has announced the capture of North Korean soldiers alive since they entered the nearly three-year-old war last fall.
According to Ukrainian and Western assessments, some 11,000 troops from Russia’s ally North Korea have been deployed to the Kursk region to support Moscow’s forces.
Russia has neither confirmed nor denied their presence.
Zelensky said Russian and North Korean forces had suffered heavy losses.
He released a short video showing the interrogation of two men presented as North Korean soldiers. One of them is lying on a bed with bandaged hands, the other is sitting with a bandage on his jaw.
One of the men said through an interpreter that he did not know he was fighting against Ukraine and was told he was participating in a training exercise.
He said he hid in a shelter during the offensive and was found a few days later. He said that if he was ordered to return to North Korea, he would do so, but was prepared to stay in Ukraine if given the chance.
Al Jazeera was unable to verify the video.
“One of them [soldiers] expressed the desire to stay in Ukraine, the other to return to Korea,” Zelensky said in a televised statement.
He added that for North Korean soldiers who do not wish to return home, there may be other options available, and “those who express a desire to bring peace closer by spreading the truth about this war in Korea [language] will have this opportunity.
He did not provide specific details.
The South Korean NIS, for its part, told the AFP news agency that it had “confirmed that the Ukrainian army had captured two North Korean soldiers on January 9 on the Kursk battlefield in Russia.”
The NIS said one of the captured soldiers revealed he received military training from Russian forces after arriving in November.
“He initially thought he was being sent for training, then realized upon arrival in Russia that he had been deployed,” the NIS said. The soldier also said North Korean forces suffered “significant losses during the fighting.”
Neither Russia nor North Korea reacted to the intelligence information.
Zelensky said last month that nearly 3,000 North Korean troops had been “killed or injured” fighting for Russia. But Seoul estimates the figure at 1,000.
The NIS told South Korean lawmakers last month that “several North Korean casualties” had already been attributed to Ukrainian missile and drone attacks as well as training accidents, with the highest ranking being “at least at the level of a general.
Due to losses among its forces, North Korea is preparing for additional deployment to Ukraine, according to the South Korean military.
