WASHINGTON — South Korea is demanding an apology from Ukraine after its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, detailed how his country captured North Korean soldiers fighting for Russia.
During Zelensky’s address to the United Nations General Assembly last week, he revealed that Ukraine had transfered two captured North Koreans to Pyongyang’s southern neighbor in January 2025, enraging Seoul.
“The presidential office expresses strong regret over Ukraine’s unilateral disclosure and its subsequent false announcement that there had not been a non-disclosure agreement,” Seong Ghi-hong, a spokesperson for South Korea President Lee Jae-myung, said Sunday.
An estimated 15,000 to 20,000 North Korean troops have been sent to the battlefield to aid Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces.
“These guys are not easy to capture alive. One of them, when he realized he was going to be taken prisoner, tried to kill himself, and he was shocked that fate did not let him die,” Zelensky said during his Sept. 23 address.
“This is madness too. Why should Koreans give their lives in a war against Ukraine? [North Korean dictator] Kim Jong Un uses them like currency, and he gets something in return,” the Ukrainian president added, alluding to economic and humanitarian aid North Korea has received from Russia in exchange for military assistance.
Lee, who is pursuing a deal with the North to scrap its nuclear weapons in exchange for sanctions relief, also decried Zelensky’s disclosure.
“The issue of repatriating North Korean prisoners of war is a highly sensitive agenda that significantly impacts diplomacy, national security, and the situation on the Korean Peninsula,” he posted on social media Thursday, per a translation.
Lee knocked Zelensky for advertising “repatriation to the whole world with banging bells and dancing to show off their achievements—without caring about the state of inter-Korean relations.”
“I do not know the reasons behind the Ukrainian side’s decision to disclose the information in violation of the non-disclosure agreement, but it is deeply regrettable,” he added.
South Korea had pushed Ukraine not to return the North Koreans to their home country due to the severe persecution they would likely face back home for getting captured alive.
Zelensky has claimed that Russia wants another 30,000 North Korean troops to aid in the four-plus-year-old invasion of Ukraine.
Since the signing of a 1953 armistice halting the Korean War, more than 34,000 North Koreans have defected to the south.
