"I just feel so uncomfortable being alive" – update on North Korean soldiers captured in the Russo-Ukrainian War

[The Financial News] The latest situation of North Korean prisoners of war who were deployed with the Russian Armed Forces and captured by the Armed Forces of Ukraine has been reported. It comes about a year after their capture.

On the 20th, MBC's "PD Note" aired part one of its series "The Russia-Ukraine War and the North Korean Military," titled "Shadow Army."
The interview with North Korean prisoners of war Mr. Ri, 27, and Mr. Baek, 22, was conducted in Ukraine in October last year.
Previously, on January 11 last year (local time), Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that two wounded KPA soldiers had been captured in Russia's Kursk region and were being interrogated.
At the time, Mr. Ri had suffered a jawbone injury after a bullet pierced his chin, while Mr. Baek, whose hands were wrapped in bandages, became known worldwide through released images. In February of the same year, People Power Party lawmaker Yu Yongwon met with the two men. During that meeting, they expressed their intention to defect, saying they "desperately want to go to South Korea."
On the broadcast, Mr. Ri said, "I am firmly determined to go to South Korea," but added, "I keep wondering whether I can really go there. Even so, my desire is earnest," he confessed.



He went on, "I just feel so uncomfortable, being alive," and continued, "I don't even know if my mother is still alive now. I worry that something bad may have happened to her because of me, that she gave birth to someone like me for nothing. Becoming a prisoner is like being a traitor. It's like betraying the country," he confided.
Mr. Ri also said, "Everyone else refused to be taken prisoner and blew themselves up, but I couldn't," adding, "If I had at least had a grenade, I could have died instead of becoming a prisoner. From now on, won't the regret of not dying back then come back a hundredfold?"
He recalled scenes from the war as well. "We were sent in last, and the ones who went before us were all killed," Mr. Ri said. "When I had only heard about the war, I didn't feel much pain emotionally. But after actually going out, fighting, and seeing people die, my thinking changed."
He continued, "I started to feel fear, and I kept thinking how pitiful and brutal it all was. I had never in my life witnessed such a bloody, savage battle," adding, "A comrade who went out ahead of me was killed when a suicide drone slammed into him. His head and chest were blown off completely."
Mr. Baek was wounded in a drone strike during combat and was left unattended for four days before being captured by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
He said, "A soldier of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) cannot become a prisoner. The very fact of becoming a prisoner is a crime," and added, "If I go back to North Korea, I will not be able to survive."
He stressed that his parents do not know he was sent to the war, saying, "If my actions bring harm to my parents, wouldn't that make me an even more unfilial son?" and confessed, "I think it would be better to die cleanly."


gaa1003@fnnews.com Ahn Gaeul Reporter