North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attends a welcoming ceremony for soldiers from the 528th Regiment of Engineers of the Korean People’s Army at the plaza of the April 25 House of Culture in Pyongyang, North Korea, in December. The troops returned from deployment in Russia’s Kursk region, where they performed mine-clearing duties amid the Russia-Ukraine war. Photo by North Korean Central News Agency/EPA
Executive director’s note: Hyunseung Lee, an escapee from North Korea, sent this letter to the president of Ukraine after watching the documentary at this link: https://youtu.be/1FSgwPU-wVk.
Your Excellency, Mr. President and Madam First Lady:
After watching Parts 1 and 2 of the Korean documentary MBC PD Notebook, “The Russia-Ukraine War and North Korean Soldiers,” I found myself unable to stop crying in front of the screen. In the faces of the young North Korean soldiers — who blame themselves in shame for being taken prisoner, who wake up night after night fearing for the families they left behind in North Korea — I saw another layer of the war’s cruelty, and moments in which human dignity itself is being trampled.
They said, “We want to go to South Korea.”Those words were not a request for asylum. They were a desperate plea to live.
In front of the camera, one soldier said:
“I feel deeply uncomfortable just being alive. … It feels like I betrayed my country. “”Won’t the regret of not dying back then come back to me a hundredfold? From the beginning, I said I wanted to go to South Korea. I wish I could go … but wanting to go doesn’t mean I can. If I can’t go to South Korea, death is the only option.”
Another soldier, his voice shaking, confessed:
“If I’m sent back to North Korea, three generations of my family will be wiped out. I wake up in the middle of the night, terrified that I’ll be repatriated to North Korea. Now, I’m absolutely certain that I must go to South Korea. But just because I want to go doesn’t mean I’m allowed to, does it?”
Mr. President,
A human life must never be used as a bargaining chip.
Returning North Korean prisoners of war to North Korea under the name of prisoner exchange is a choice that condemns them to political prison camps, forced labor and a lifetime of silence. This is not justice. It is an irreversible death sentence. In the North Korean system, being captured as a POW is an unforgivable crime, and punishment does not stop with the individual — it extends to three generations of their family.
None of these North Korean soldiers came to this land by choice. They were mobilized without knowing where they were going, forced into war and demanded only to sacrifice themselves.
Returning them through a prisoner exchange will not cause North Korea to halt its deployment to Russia or withdraw from the war. The North Korean regime does not view human lives as negotiation assets — it treats them as disposable ammunition. The result is clear: The only voices that disappear are those capable of telling the truth.
I write to you as a former North Korean special forces soldier who escaped to find freedom. We were merely brainwashed by the regime; none of us wanted that life. No one chose that life.
The families of the captured soldiers are likely already classified as “unreliable elements.” Over time, they will be quietly erased from society. The moment these soldiers are returned to North Korea, a death sentence is passed not only on them, but on their families, as well.
But, Mr. President, there is another path.
There is a path in which these soldiers return alive to the free world and testify to the truth of the Kim Jong Un regime’s forced mobilization and systematic human rights abuses. As their testimonies accumulate, the international community will condemn these crimes with greater force, and the people of North Korea will come to recognize the regime’s guilt.
The very fact that these men live freely and succeed with dignity becomes the strongest possible evidence of how wrong dictatorship, lifelong rule and human rights violations truly are. This is how future wars are prevented. This is how future sacrifices are stopped.
I also appeal directly to you, Madam First Lady.
As a mother and as a defender of human rights, you will understand. These young men’s mothers are at this very moment lying awake in North Korea, worrying about their sons. Their families — already under surveillance — would rather see their children live free and happy lives in search of liberty than return home branded as traitors and die as outcasts.
There is one more reality that must be stated.
The current South Korean government pursues policies that avoid provoking the North Korean regime. There was even a case in which the president of South Korea was unaware that a South Korean citizen was being detained in North Korea.
Under these circumstances, it is highly unlikely that the South Korean government will proactively initiate a proposal to guarantee freedom of choice or repatriation to South Korea for North Korean POWs.
That is why Your Excellency must act first.
I respectfully ask that you publicly propose this to the South Korean government. Please issue an official statement declaring that Ukraine guarantees North Korean prisoners of war the freedom to choose their country of asylum, and initiate consultations with the Republic of Korea regarding their transfer.
Mr. President, Madam First Lady,
Please do not block the course of their lives. Please do not close the door to freedom.
May the values Ukraine has defended — human dignity and freedom — shine once more through this decision. History will remember this moment, and this choice will be recorded as a true victory of humanity, even amid war.
Please, Send them to South Korea. Send them where they wish to go.
With the deepest respect and utmost urgency,
Hyunseung Lee,
Former North Korean Special Forces soldier
Founder, North Korean Young Leaders Assembly
Lead Strategist: North Korea Initiative, Global Peace Foundation
As one person who chose freedom
Hyunseung Lee is a North Korean escapee, the lead strategist at the Global Peace Foundation, the founder of North Korean Young Leaders Assembly and a guest contributor to the Korea Regional Review. He has prior experience in North Korea’s shipping and mining sectors and as a sergeant in the DPRK Army Special Force. He fled in 2014 due to severe governmental purges. He holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Dongbei University of Finance and Economics and a master’s degree in public administration from Columbia University.
