{ "archive_path": "archive/1790417165.826175", "base_url": "thediplomat.com/2026/09/north-koreas-ukraine-pows-are-now-in-south-korea-what-comes-next", "basename": "", "bookmarked_date": "2026-09-26 10:06", "canonical": { "archive_org_path": "https://web.archive.org/web/thediplomat.com/2026/09/north-koreas-ukraine-pows-are-now-in-south-korea-what-comes-next", "dom_path": "output.html", "favicon_path": "favicon.ico", "git_path": "git/", "google_favicon_path": "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=thediplomat.com", "headers_path": "headers.json", "htmltotext_path": "htmltotext.txt", "index_path": "index.html", "media_path": "media/", "mercury_path": "mercury/content.html", "pdf_path": "output.pdf", "readability_path": "readability/content.html", "screenshot_path": "screenshot.png", "singlefile_path": "singlefile.html", "warc_path": "warc/", "wget_path": "thediplomat.com/2026/09/north-koreas-ukraine-pows-are-now-in-south-korea-what-comes-next/index.html" }, "domain": "thediplomat.com", "extension": "", "hash": "1HSC860SRM0BEBCRKY71", "history": { "archive_org": [], "dom": [], "favicon": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--max-time", "120", "--output", "favicon.ico", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=thediplomat.com" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-09-26T10:21:32.363850+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "favicon.ico", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790417165.826175", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-26T10:21:31.692027+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "git": [], "headers": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--head", "--max-time", "120", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://thediplomat.com/2026/09/north-koreas-ukraine-pows-are-now-in-south-korea-what-comes-next/" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-09-26T10:21:32.802395+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "headers.json", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790417165.826175", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-26T10:21:32.373335+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "htmltotext": [], "media": [], "mercury": [ { "cmd": [ "/app/node_modules/@postlight/parser/cli.js", "https://thediplomat.com/2026/09/north-koreas-ukraine-pows-are-now-in-south-korea-what-comes-next/" ], "cmd_version": "1.0.0", "end_ts": "2026-09-26T10:21:48.018698+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "mercury", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790417165.826175", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-26T10:21:44.089537+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "pdf": [], "readability": [ { "cmd": [ "/app/node_modules/readability-extractor/readability-extractor", "/tmp/tmpc93s3oxt", "https://thediplomat.com/2026/09/north-koreas-ukraine-pows-are-now-in-south-korea-what-comes-next/" ], "cmd_version": "0.0.11", "end_ts": "2026-09-26T10:21:44.075884+00:00", "index_texts": [ "The immediate fate of two North Korean prisoners-of-war captured by Ukrainian forces is no longer in question, but the saga is not yet over.\u00a0\nUkraine has transferred custody of the pair to South Korea in what was perhaps a predictable outcome given their reported desire not to return to North Korea. However, the circumstances surrounding the disclosure have introduced new political dynamics to the situation. Now, both the South Korean government and the two former soldiers face an unprecedented resettlement process.\nKyiv first announced that it had captured the two North Korean soldiers in January 2025, immediately prompting questions of what would come of the pair. The legal provisions surrounding their eventual disposition were complicated. International rules pointed toward repatriating them with other POWs to Russia. Before the capture happened, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said it was his government\u2019s position that all POWs in Ukrainian custody would receive the same treatment.\nThe two soldiers, however, reportedly expressed fear of repatriation and a desire to defect to South Korea. Given the Kim Jong Un regime\u2019s publicized insistence that soldiers kill themselves rather than be captured, returning to North Korea could have exposed them to reprisals for allowing themselves to be taken into Ukrainian custody. Under the principle of non-refoulement, the potential risk of persecution, torture, or other serious human rights violations if the soldiers were ultimately repatriated to North Korea was a necessary consideration.\nThe South Korean government stepped in early with offers to take the POWs into their custody. With advocacy stretching back to the previous Yoon Suk-yeol administration, there was little doubt over Seoul\u2019s desired outcome for the two individuals.\nWhat is now evident is that the two governments came to a confidential agreement to transfer the custody of the POWs. The handover reportedly took place ahead of the U.N. General Assembly debates, and the two former soldiers are now in South Korean government care. Details of this arrangement first came to light via Zelenskyy himself.\nDuring his speech at the U.N. General Assembly, the Ukrainian president captured international attention when he revealed that Ukraine had transferred custody of the two POWs to South Korea. In the speech, he noted that \u201cthese guys are not easy to capture alive,\u201d adding that one of the soldiers, \u201cwhen he realized he was going to be taken prisoner, tried to kill himself.\u201d Zelenskyy\u2019s disclosure came unilaterally and without warning to the South Korean government.\nKyiv\u2019s decision to reveal information despite the confidential arrangement created a diplomatic problem with Seoul, but it also served a clear Ukrainian purpose. Kyiv\u2019s intelligence has repeatedly claimed that the Kremlin is seeking an additional 30,000-50,000 North Korean troops to support a new offensive. Zelenskyy therefore used the U.N. General Assembly debates as a platform to highlight the Kim regime\u2019s continued support for Russia\u2019s war effort and to put North Korea\u2019s military involvement back on the international agenda.\nBut Zelenskyy\u2019s announcement caused a stir in South Korean domestic politics. Opposition lawmakers immediately chastised the Lee Jae-myung administration for not disclosing the transfer. Some argued that the government was withholding details out of fear of how North Korea may react.\nLee took to social media to push back against this criticism. He said that there was an agreement to keep the transfer confidential, expressing that it was \u201cdeeply regrettable\u201d that the Ukraine side released details on the matter. He added that publicly disclosing the successful repatriation could have helped boost approval ratings, but it would not have been right to risk \u201csomeone\u2019s life or the national interest\u201d for one\u2019s \u201cown petty benefit.\u201d\nThere are political reasons why some in the Lee administration may have sought to avoid disclosing information about the POW transfer. The government has been working to rekindle any form of inter-Korean engagement, and some policy groups within Seoul have warned that North Korea could react strongly to the decision.\nHowever, such concerns may be unfounded. North Korean state media has not commented on the POWs since their reported capture, and there are much more significant sticking points between the two Koreas; namely, Pyongyang\u2019s preconditions that Seoul must drop unification and denuclearization as policy objectives. Since Zelenskyy\u2019s announcement, the only reporting from Pyongyang directed toward the South Korean government has been a statement attributed to Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui on a familiar issue: reiterating the Kim regime\u2019s position that denying the reality of North Korea\u2019s nuclear weapon status \u201cis to give up the future.\u201d\nMeanwhile, from a security perspective, there are justifiable concerns related to the information disclosure. There have been North Korean assassination attempts against South Korea-based defectors in the past. The most prominent recent example occurred in a 2011 incident in which a North Korean agent attempted to kill prominent defector-turned-activist Park Sang-hak with a poison needle.\u00a0\nThe two POWs could therefore present a different security challenge from the average North Korean defector. Their firsthand knowledge of North Korean involvement in the Russia-Ukraine War means that there is a reasonable risk that they could become targets of elimination efforts.\nGiven the confidential nature of the South Korea-Ukraine agreement, there are few details on what comes next for the two former soldiers. There may have been an understanding that they will remain in custody until the conclusion of the war, or Kyiv may have conceded that South Korea can treat the individuals as they would any other defector. This would affect how long the individuals remain in the government\u2019s custody.\nWhatever the length of their initial detention in South Korea, the eventual next step will be resettlement.\nResettlement can be difficult for any defector. New arrivals generally undergo a months-long program at the Hanawon resettlement facility under the Ministry of Unification\u2019s remit, and it includes tasks such as teaching individuals about South Korean customs and courtesies, how to manage bank accounts and finances, and finding employment.\u00a0\nUpon completion of the resettlement process, they are then given relocation assistance to a new residence somewhere in the country. There, they are typically assigned a local officer \u2013 either a Ministry of Unification, Korean National Police, or National Intelligence Service (NIS) official \u2013 to continue supporting their transition process and to contact in the event of any issues.\nThe system is different for higher profile or high-risk defectors. They may be former senior North Korean officials like Thae Yong Ho, or figures such as Park Sang-hak who have used their newfound freedom to lead civic movements in protest of the Kim regime. In those cases, the individuals can remain in NIS protective custody until officials determine that it is safe for them to return to public life. Even then, there may be continued protection services.\nThe two former soldiers transferred from Ukraine will likely fall into that latter category, particularly with the amount of media coverage they have received.\nThus, the arrival of the two North Korean soldiers to South Korea resolves the most immediate question surrounding their fate, but the next steps remain dynamic. The situation has now entered a new phase where South Korean politics will continue to scrutinize the issue as the government works to navigate an unprecedented resettlement process." ], "output": "readability", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790417165.826175", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-26T10:21:42.020122+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "screenshot": [], "singlefile": [], "title": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--max-time", "120", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://thediplomat.com/2026/09/north-koreas-ukraine-pows-are-now-in-south-korea-what-comes-next/" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-09-26T10:21:42.011741+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "North Korea\u2019s Ukraine POWs Are Now in South Korea. 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