South Korea summons Ukraine envoy over secret transfer of North Korean POWs

South Korea has formally protested to Ukraine after President Volodymyr Zelensky disclosed the transfer of two captured North Korean soldiers to Seoul. Vice Foreign Minister Park Yoon-joo summoned Ukraine's acting ambassador, Andrii Vieshkin, and lodged what Seoul described as a strong complaint over the disclosure. South Korean officials say the handover was meant to remain secret because of national security concerns and the sensitivity of the prisoners' families.

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The dispute centres on two North Korean soldiers who were captured by Ukrainian forces in Russia's Kursk region in early 2025. According to the account given by Seoul, the men were among thousands of North Korean troops supporting Russia in the war in Ukraine and had told local media they wanted to be sent to South Korea. After more than a year of negotiations between Seoul and Kyiv, Zelensky announced at the United Nations General Assembly last Wednesday that the soldiers had been transferred, saying they had not been easy to capture alive.

President Lee Jae Myung called the disclosure greatly disappointing and said the transfer was a highly sensitive issue affecting national security. His office said Ukraine had indicated the soldiers would be mentioned in Zelensky's speech, but not that they had already been transferred. Seoul also said the secrecy was intended partly to protect the soldiers' families and partly because Kyiv did not want criticism that it had given up a possible exchange opportunity involving Ukrainian prisoners of war.

The row matters because it touches on the handling of prisoners linked to Russia's war in Ukraine, as well as South Korea's wider security concerns about North Korea. Seoul has been sympathetic to Ukraine since Russia's full-scale invasion, but it has maintained its long-standing policy of not supplying lethal weapons to countries at war. The dispute has also become politically sensitive in Seoul, where the opposition accused Lee of covering up the transfer to avoid angering Pyongyang.

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The episode comes against the backdrop of South Korea's cautious approach to North Korea and Lee's efforts to reopen peace talks, which have so far made little progress. It also highlights the unusual position of North Korean soldiers fighting alongside Russian forces and then becoming part of a separate diplomatic negotiation between Kyiv and Seoul. Ukraine's foreign ministry has declined to comment on the matter when approached.

What remains unclear is whether the two governments can repair the damage to trust after the public dispute. Seoul has demanded an apology, while Ukraine has said there was no non-disclosure agreement between the sides. The next stage will likely depend on whether the two countries can settle the disagreement over what was agreed and how the transfer should have been handled.

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