Zelenskyy says Ukraine ready to trade captured North Koreans for Ukrainian prisoners

Ukraine is ready to send two North Koreans captured in battle back to their homeland in exchange for its own soldiers held in Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday.

"If Kim Jong Un even remembers these citizens of his and is capable of organizing an exchange for our warriors being held in Russia, we are ready to transfer such soldiers," Zelenskyy said in a video statement on Sunday.

Soldiers who did not want to return to North Korea may have "other options" if they are willing to "bring peace closer by spreading the truth about this war in Korean," Zelenskyy said in a social media post.

In an unverified video posted by Zelenskyy that appeared to show an interrogation with the two wounded soldiers, one said he wanted to live in Ukraine, but would return if required to, according to a translator in the video.

Asked if he knew where he was and that he had been fighting a war against Ukraine, the soldier shook his head. He said he was part of an offensive on Jan. 3, but hid in a dugout when he saw his fellow soldiers dying, and was captured two days later, according to the translator in the video.

The other captured North Korean soldier appeared unable to talk because of a wounded jaw. In the video, in which he had a swollen lip and a bandage around his head, the soldier shook his head "no" when asked if his family knew where he was.

According to the Geneva Conventions – a set of globally agreed-upon treaties that lay out the rules of war – prisoners of war are entitled to dignity and should not be exposed to "public curiosity." Because captured prisoners are in a vulnerable situation, putting out pictures of them or videos of them being interrogated, can be a war crime.

Hundreds of North Koreans killed, South Korea says

The two soldiers are the first North Koreans fighting with Russia that Ukraine said it captured alive. They were taken in Kursk, a Russian region on the border that Ukrainian troops are trying to hold, according to Zelenskyy.

Reports first emerged that North Korean soldiers were preparing to join Russia's fight in the fall. In late October, the U.S. said it also had intelligence that thousands of North Korean troops first shipped to training bases in Russia's far East had arrived in Kursk.

Around 300 North Korean soldiers have been killed and 2,700 have been injured in the war, a South Korean lawmaker briefed by the country's intelligence service said on Monday.

Lee Seong-kweun, a lawmaker on the intelligence committee of South Korea's parliament, said memos recovered on the bodies of North Korean soldiers killed in the war indicated their military leaders "emphasized self-destruction and suicide before capture, and that soldiers vaguely expect" to receive pardons or membership in Korth Korea's ruling Workers' Party in return for fighting on Russia's behalf.

If North Korean soldiers wanted to come to South Korea, the country would cooperate with Ukraine, Yonhap news agency reported.

Contributing: Reuters

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Zelenskyy seeks prisoner swap with North Korea for Ukrainian captives