101 East investigates the plight of two North Korean POWs in Ukraine and the campaign to transfer them to South Korea.
In January 2025, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced to the world the capture of two North Korean soldiers.
It was the first hard evidence that Kim Jong Un had secretly deployed some 15,000 special forces troops to support the Russian invasion of Ukraine in exchange for billions of dollars worth of military technology and cash for Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme.
But posting the POWs’ images online and opening their prison doors to media caused alarm, with international human rights organisations
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