South Korean president accuses Ukraine of breaking non-disclosure deal on North Korean POW transfer
South Korean President Lee Jae-myung accused Ukraine of breaking a non-disclosure agreement by publicly announcing the transfer of two captured North Korean soldiers to Seoul during President Volodymyr Zelensky's UN General Assembly speech on September 23. Ukraine's presidential office denies any such agreement existed. Lee made the criticism in a post on X on September 24, calling the disclosure irresponsible given risks to the prisoners and their families in North Korea.
მთავარი მომენტები
- South Korean President Lee Jae-myung said Ukraine violated a non-disclosure agreement by publicly announcing the transfer of two North Korean POWs to Seoul.
- Lee posted his statement on X on September 24, the day after Zelensky's address to the UN General Assembly, and called the disclosure cruel and irresponsible.
- The transferred soldiers were captured in January 2025 in Russia's Kursk Oblast by Ukrainian Special Operations Forces and paratroopers; both had expressed a written wish to move to South Korea.
- Ukraine's presidential office said it disclosed only the fact of the transfer itself, without operational details, and communications adviser Dmytro Lytvyn denied any non-disclosure agreement existed.
- The dispute is also playing out inside Ukraine: media adviser Oksana Torop said an agreement did exist, contradicting Lytvyn.
- Lee's post was the first official confirmation of the transfer from the South Korean side, while Seoul had previously declined to confirm the soldiers' arrival, citing risks to them and their families in North Korea.
რატომ არის მნიშვნელოვანი
The dispute is the first public friction in the Kyiv-Seoul dialogue over North Korean prisoners and has direct diplomatic, security and humanitarian stakes: Lee framed the public disclosure as reckless given the risks to the POWs and their families remaining in North Korea, and said it has serious implications for diplomacy, national security and the situation on the Korean Peninsula. The row is also being used by the South Korean opposition to attack Lee's administration for allowing a foreign leader to break the news.
რა მოხდა
On September 23, during his address to the UN General Assembly in New York, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that Ukraine had transferred two captured North Korean soldiers to South Korea. The following day, September 24, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung wrote on X that the disclosure breached a non-disclosure agreement Seoul and Kyiv had made given the sensitive nature of the repatriation; he said he did not know the reasons behind the disclosure but expressed deep regret and called it cruel and irresponsible. Lee also noted that voices inside the South Korean government had wanted to publicize the repatriation to boost political ratings, but that the decision to stay quiet was deliberate. Ukraine's presidential office told the Yonhap agency that it had disclosed only the fact of the transfer itself, without operational details, and that keeping the whole operation secret would have been strange; his communications adviser, Dmytro Lytvyn, denied that any non-disclosure agreement existed.
როგორ აშუქებენ უკრაინული წყაროები
Ukrainian reporting centers on the Office of the President's denial that any non-disclosure agreement existed, with adviser Dmytro Lytvyn calling Ukraine "an open country" and stressing that only the bare fact of transfer was made public. Ukrainian outlets highlight Zelensky's sharp framing of the North Korean leader using his soldiers "as currency" and emphasize that both POWs had themselves expressed a written wish to go to South Korea. Ukrainian sources also note that media adviser Oksana Torop disagreed with Lytvyn and said an agreement did exist.
როგორ აშუქებენ საერთაშორისო წყაროები
International outlets frame the episode primarily as a diplomatic rift between Seoul and Kyiv and as a political problem for the Lee administration, stressing Lee's "cruel and irresponsible" characterization and South Korean opposition criticism (including from People Power Party's Ahn Cheol-soo) that South Koreans learned about the POWs' arrival through a foreign leader's UN speech rather than from their own government. International reporting also highlights the internal Ukrainian disagreement about whether a non-disclosure agreement existed.
სად განსხვავდება გაშუქება
The synthesis records two disagreements. First, whether a non-disclosure agreement on the POW transfer existed: South Korean President Lee Jae-myung and Oksana Torop, media adviser to Ambassador Valeriy Zaluzhnyy, say it did, while Zelenskyy's communications adviser Dmytro Lytvyn and the Office of the President of Ukraine deny it. Second, whether Seoul was adequately warned in advance of Zelenskyy's planned disclosure: an anonymous South Korean presidential administration official told Yonhap that Seoul knew of Zelenskyy's intention but was not told the form of disclosure, while President Lee's broader public position characterizes the announcement as an unconsented breach of an agreement.
კონტექსტი
The two North Korean soldiers, identified as 21-year-old Pek and 26-year-old Ri, were captured by Ukrainian Special Operations Forces and paratroopers in Russia's Kursk Oblast in January 2025 in what is described as the first known case of North Korean troops being taken prisoner during the war. Both POWs expressed a written wish to move to South Korea, with reports of their written requests surfacing that December. Under the Constitution of the Republic of Korea, North Korean residents are considered citizens and Seoul is obliged to accept them on its territory if they wish. In late May 2025 South Korea asked that the North Korean POWs not be included in "1000 for 1000" prisoner exchange lists, and in June 2026 the South Korean Foreign Ministry said it was ready to accept all North Korean soldiers captured by Ukraine if they wished and opposed their forced return to Russia or North Korea. Ukrainian and South Korean estimates place North Korean troop deployments supporting Russia at roughly 15,000 since 2024, concentrated in the Kursk border area; Zelensky said on August 8 that Russia plans to deploy 30,000–50,000 North Korean personnel, and Vadym Skibitskyi said in late August that a new 8,500-strong contingent had been added.