South Korea just accused Ukraine of lying about a secret prisoner deal
3 days ago · 28 September 2026Share
South Korea President Yoon Suk-yeol official portrait. Office of the President of South Korea · CC BY-SA 3.0
South Korea just called out Ukraine for breaking a secrecy deal.
And then lying about the deal ever existing.
Here's what happened.
South Korea's presidential office demanded an official explanation and an apology from Ukraine, a day ago.
Its case is simple. Kyiv disclosed the transfer of two North Korean soldiers to South Korea. Then it denied the two countries had ever agreed to keep that transfer secret.
Seong Ghi-hong is South Korea's senior presidential secretary for public relations. He says the government is considering more measures, if it needs to.
So who are these two soldiers?
Ukrainian forces captured them in Russia's Kursk region, in January last year. They'd been fighting for Russia, against Ukraine.
Four days ago, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine's President, told the United Nations General Assembly that Ukraine had sent the two men to South Korea.
South Korea says that was never meant to come out.
Lee Jae Myung, South Korea's President, posted on X about it. He says the disclosure broke the two countries' confidentiality agreement. He says he found it deeply regrettable.
He says it had been right, in every way, to keep the transfer quiet. And he says he doesn't know what made Ukraine disclose it, despite that agreement.
Ukraine's presidential office tells a different story. It says there was no secret to break.
It says disclosing the transfer, without every detail of how it happened, was reasonable. And it says keeping the whole thing hidden would have been strange.
So that's two governments, giving completely opposite accounts of the same conversation.
The rest of this story is for members.
Grave of 17 North Korean soldiers. Mztourist · CC BY-SA 4.0
Dmitro Litvin is an adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He puts it more bluntly. He says quote "There was no agreement to remain silent".
But here's the thing. Ukraine isn't even united on this.
Oksana Torop is a media adviser to Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine's ambassador to the United Kingdom. She called Zelenskyy's disclosure a "show", in a Facebook post.
Zaluzhnyi is seen as a political rival to Zelenskyy. So this is an argument inside Ukraine's own government. Not just between Kyiv and Seoul.
South Korea's opposition is using it too. Rep. Jeong Jeom-sig is the floor leader of the main opposition party. He says the government kept the repatriation secret to avoid provoking North Korea. He says that's giving in to threats from Pyongyang.
And there's a reason this cuts so deep.
North Korea has sent an estimated 14,000 to 15,000 troops to fight for Russia since 2024. Mostly in the Kursk region. South Korea says more than 6,000 of them are dead.
South Korea's constitution treats every Korean, North and South, as its own citizen. That's why South Korea says any North Korean soldier captured in this war falls under its protection. Wherever he was caught.
The two men reportedly wanted to go to South Korea, not back to the North. One of them tried to kill himself rather than be taken prisoner, Zelenskyy says. He says the man was shocked that he survived.
And this isn't the first time the two countries talked about this.
Lee Jae Myung and Volodymyr Zelenskyy discussed the prisoners' status at a summit in Ankara, back in July. They agreed to resolve it under international law. Their foreign ministers had already promised to cooperate on it, back in March.
So both sides went into this with an understanding. Now each one says the other broke it.
North Korea hasn't said a word about any of this.
So what don't we know? Whether South Korea will actually impose sanctions, or scale back military cooperation with Ukraine. And what made Zelenskyy raise this at the UN, despite the earlier understanding.
Right now, two governments that were coordinating against the same enemy are instead arguing over who lied to whom.
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