North Korea cracks down on rumors about soldiers captured in Ukraine

North Korean authorities have ordered state security agents to identify and suppress rumors spreading along the Chinese border about soldiers captured by Ukrainian forces, as public anxiety over military deployments to Russia grows, a source told Daily NK on Monday.

The source said stories about North Korean prisoners of war in Ukraine have been circulating in border areas. North Korea has made no official acknowledgment of any captured soldiers.

The apparent trigger is a YouTube interview with North Korean POWs that spread widely online. Few people inside North Korea appear to know the precise contents of the interview, but word that POWs exist at all has reached a significant number of North Koreans for the first time.

“People were shocked to learn the news about the POWs and expressed concern about what might happen to them,” the source said. “Some people also remarked how hard it must be for their families to learn what had happened.”

Given the widespread expectation that repatriated POWs face harsh punishment at home, many North Koreans are pessimistic about the captives’ prospects. The prevailing sentiment, the source indicated, is that returning home could paradoxically be the worst outcome. “It might be better for them to live out their lives in Ukraine,” one person was quoted as saying.

Families of young conscripts grow anxious

The rumors are hitting especially hard among young men on the verge of military service and their families.

“Since some soldiers have died while serving in Russia, young people who are about to enlist and their families are very anxious,” the source said.

Some parents are taking steps to prevent their children from being assigned to engineering corps and other units considered more likely to be sent abroad — a sign of how deeply unease over overseas deployments has taken root among ordinary North Koreans even as Pyongyang deepens its military cooperation with Moscow.

The Ministry of State Security has responded by adding POW-related rumors to its list of monitored behaviors, the source said, and agents have been ordered to determine what people are saying and trace where the rumors originated.

The effect, however, may be counterproductive. “Those who are aware of these efforts are making a point of not talking about the POWs in group meetings,” the source said — but the crackdown itself appears to be stoking curiosity rather than dampening it.

“As state security agents trace the rumors, people find themselves more and more intrigued,” the source said. “By this point, most in-the-know individuals have heard about the North Korean POWs.”

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