South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has threatened to take unspecified “additional measures” if Ukraine does not publicly apologize for revealing that two North Korean prisoners of war had been sent to the South. Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky made the revelation before the UN general assembly last week, angering Seoul, which said the move should remain secret. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha on Thursday described the situation as a “diplomatic misunderstanding,” adding that kyiv was “working” to resolve it. Lee rejected this characterization in X, saying that it referred to “the dignity of the Korean people and the nation.” Lee’s office said last week that it was Ukraine that requested that the move be kept secret, partly to protect the North Koreans’ families, and also because kyiv wanted to avoid criticism that it had given up the opportunity to exchange soldiers for Ukrainian prisoners of war. Zelensky’s office responded, saying the two countries had no such agreement to keep the move confidential, and Lee himself faced harsh criticism at home after Zelensky’s revelation, with the South Korean opposition accusing him of covering up the transfer to appease Pyongyang. The two soldiers, who were among thousands of North Koreans supporting Russia in the Ukraine war, had previously told local media they wanted to be sent to South Korea. Speaking to Ukrainian media on Thursday, Sybiha, the Foreign Minister, said he “hopes this situation will be resolved in the very near future.” “We are working on it. For us, South Korea is an important country and I really look forward to the momentum, the continuation and the concrete results that we are really achieving with them,” he said. Lee, in response, accused kyiv of trying to “bring war to the Korean Peninsula.” “We deeply regret that, instead of acknowledging the facts of the agreement and apologizing, they are talking about an imminent military confrontation between the North and the South,” he said in a post X. Seoul has sympathized with Ukraine ever since. Russia’s full-scale invasion, but has adhered to its long-standing policy of not providing lethal weapons to any country involved in an active war.
