A North Korean soldier captured by Ukrainian forces last month has reportedly expressed his wishes to defect to South Korea.

The North Korean, surnamed Ri, expressed his wishes in an interview with South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper, published Wednesday. 

Ri said he has decided about 80 percent and plans to apply for asylum to go to South Korea. 

He said he was a soldier working for the Reconnaissance General Bureau, adding that he thought he was fighting South Korean soldiers as the officials from the North’s Ministry of State Security lied that the drone pilots were all South Koreans. 

Ri reportedly left North Korea in early October and trained in Vladivostok, Russia, before being transferred to the Kursk region in mid-December. 

A spokesperson for South Korea’s foreign ministry said Friday that as North Korean soldiers are South Korean citizens under the Constitution, the Seoul government plans to negotiate with Ukraine when Ri makes an official request to defect.