SEOUL, Korea — The ideological fragility of the North Korean regime has been exposed as two of its soldiers, captured by Ukrainian forces in January, have spoken with surprising frankness in their first public interview.

The two — the only North Koreans known to have been captured alive after having been sent to the Kursk region by the Kim Jong-un regime in support of Russia’s war — have previously been photographed and filmed, but have said little.

South Korea’s leading daily, the conservative Chosun Ilbo, has now published two separate interviews with the POWs over the past two days.

Analysts have speculated that the North Korean soldiers come from Pyongyang’s elite 11th Storm Corps, but the two captured soldiers say they were assigned to North Korea’s Reconnaissance General Bureau. Their comments offer an up-to-date, inside view of the shadowy RGB, Pyongyang’s cross-services sabotage and intelligence directorate.

According to Ukraine’s military, the North Korean soldiers in Kursk have fought to the death, or committed suicide — usually with grenades — to avoid capture. That the two soldiers have spoken so freely suggests a lack of POW and anti-interrogation training by their military superiors.

There is no sign the two men have been treated harshly and the newspaper’s photos indicate both captives received quality medical care and rations. The stories do not reveal either man’s full name, as both have family in North Korea. “Ri” was a 26-year-old scout sniper with the RGB, Baek a 21-year-old RGB rifleman.

Much of what the pair said matches Ukrainian accounts of the North Koreans’ fitness, marksmanship and motivation — assessed as higher than Russian units — and of their heavy losses. Ri referred to the RGB’s arduous mountain marches, endurance drills, shooting practice and ideological indoctrination.

Despite its elite status, the RGB, like other units, also performs labor for the state. One sign of its men’s toughness was their work on the prestigious Samjiyon tourism town showpiece project — in mid-winter.

“It was so cold that urine would freeze the moment it hit the ground,” Ri said, dismissing the Russian winter cold as “nothing.”

Both said they were told they were deploying to Russia for training, not combat. They were well supplied, but Ri said they had to use smartphone apps to communicate with Russians. The Chosun reporter said he was surprised, when shaking hands, by both men’s hard, calloused palms.

Meshing with Russian forces proved difficult at times: Ineffective Russian artillery cover fire left North Korean ground assaults exposed, Ri said.

Baek appeared unfazed while noting that around half of his 10-man unit had been killed: “It’s war — casualties are inevitable,” he said.

He was also low-key about the omnipresence of drones on the battlefield.

“Russian troops often talked about drone threats, advising us to hide or flee,” he said. “But our army’s marksmanship is strong. We just shot them down. … They are easy to hit.”

But Ri, who said political officers told the RGB men that South Koreans were operating the drones, offered a grimmer assessment.

“Our training emphasized speed — running, hiding, or shooting drones from the ground,” he said. “We never learned how to take them down effectively.”

His six-man infiltration team was ambushed. Five were killed and Ri, wounded, was given first aid by comrades. But after dark, he was wounded again by a “demonic” drone.

Disoriented and weaponless, he was captured alive. “If I had a grenade, maybe I would have tried to take my own life,” he said, adding he had witnessed comrades do that. “In our army, being captured is seen as betrayal.”

Baek, who was first photographed with bandages on both arms, revealed that his hands had not been injured: The bindings were precautions placed by his captors to prevent suicide. He declined to answer if he had been trained to handle captivity.

Ri’s parents live in Pyongyang. “If the North Korean government learns of my capture, I fear my parents will be forced to leave Pyongyang,” he said — only ultra-loyal citizens can live in the capital.

Baek’s father had passed away, but his mother is still alive. Both men said they had not seen their families for the entirety of their military careers.

Baek expressed a desire to return home, but admitted he was considering defecting to South Korea. Ri said he had made up his mind to defect.

The openness of the two POWs is not unprecedented: In South Korea and Myanmar, captured North Korean commandos and spies opened up about their bitter experiences. Some spoke to reporters, and even wrote books.

South Koreans have been touched by the naivete of the young captives in Kyiv. Neither had any experience abroad or of dealing with foreigners before deploying to Russia.

Baek, when first questioned over whether he wanted to live in Ukraine, asked, on camera, “Are all Ukrainians kind?”

“It’s so sad,” remarked Chun In-bum, a retired South Korean general, after reading the Chosun reports. “They are human, just like us.”

North Korean soldiers face a Catch-22, the ex-general added.

“The guidelines are very simple — ’Don’t surrender!’ — so why do they need anti-interrogation training?” he said. “It would be counter to what they teach them, when you are drilling them to kill themselves.”

Their talkativeness points to the fragility of a regime that seeks to build impregnable firewalls blocking its citizens from the outside world.

“It only takes a kind word to destroy two decades of brainwashing,” said Gen. Chun, who formerly commanded Seoul’s Special Warfare Command. “All it took was a smile, a hot tea and these guys, who were ready to kill themselves, gave in. North Korea is really, really brittle.”

Despite the rare glimpse of North Korean humanity the captives represent, one veteran North Korea-watcher warned that the bulk of Mr. Kim’s men are, like the Japanese soldiers of World War II, a tough, fight-to-the-death force.

“Everybody is different: When people go through ideological training, they have different reactions,” said Bob Collins, a retired U.S. Army interrogator and the author of an upcoming book on the RGB. “But the majority of them, when they were going to be captured, pulled out grenades and blew their heads off.”

“North Korean training,” he added, “is successful for the majority.”

• Andrew Salmon can be reached at asalmon@washingtontimes.com.