
{"id":6979,"date":"2026-05-30T14:35:31","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T14:35:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2026\/05\/30\/north-korean-pows-political-pawns-in-russias-war-on-ukraine\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T14:35:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T14:35:31","slug":"north-korean-pows-political-pawns-in-russias-war-on-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2026\/05\/30\/north-korean-pows-political-pawns-in-russias-war-on-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"North Korean POWs: Political pawns in Russia\u2019s war on Ukraine?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>101 East investigates the plight of two North Korean POWs in Ukraine and the campaign to transfer them to South Korea.<\/p>\n<div aria-live=\"polite\" aria-atomic=\"true\">\n<p>In January 2025, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced to the world the capture of two North Korean soldiers.<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019s nuclear weapons programme.<\/p>\n<p>But posting the POWs\u2019 images online and opening their prison doors to media caused alarm, with international human rights organisations arguing that such exposure breaches the Geneva Convention and puts the soldiers and their families in North Korea in grave danger.<\/p>\n<p>As Russia\u2019s war on Ukraine continues, <em>101 East<\/em> investigates whether North Korean POWs are being used as political pawns and the challenges of bringing them to safety in South Korea.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 &#8230; <a title=\"North Korean POWs: Political pawns in Russia\u2019s war on Ukraine?\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2026\/05\/30\/north-korean-pows-political-pawns-in-russias-war-on-ukraine\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about North Korean POWs: Political pawns in Russia\u2019s war on Ukraine?\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6980,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}