Seoul, Kyiv at odds over secret deal on NK POW transfer

South Korea and Ukraine are locked in an unusual diplomatic dispute over the transfer of two North Korean prisoners of war (POWs) to Seoul, with the two governments giving conflicting accounts of whether they had agreed to keep the move confidential.

The dispute escalated, Sunday, as Cheong Wa Dae demanded an official explanation and apology from Kyiv, four days after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy unexpectedly disclosed the transfer during his address to the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

Zelenskyy said Ukraine had “recently” sent two North Korean POWs to South Korea, about 20 months after their capture in Russia’s Kursk region.

The two were among thousands of North Korean troops deployed to support Russia since 2024 in its war against Ukraine. They had expressed a desire to go to South Korea instead of being repatriated to the North.

Seoul says the two sides agreed to keep the transfer confidential, while Kyiv says no such agreement existed.

The conflicting claims began to emerge on Thursday, a day after Zelenskyy’s speech, when Lee took to social media to express disappointment over the disclosure.

“I don’t know what circumstances there were, but it is very disappointing,” Lee wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

The president noted that two countries had agreed not to make the transfer public, as the matter could have significant implications for diplomacy, security and the situation on the Korean Peninsula.

A senior Cheong Wa Dae official also said on Thursday that Ukraine had informed Seoul in advance that Zelenskyy was likely to mention the POWs in his speech. But the official said it was unclear how he would refer to them and that Seoul had told Kyiv not to disclose their transfer to South Korea.

The disagreement deepened on Friday when Dmytro Lytvyn, an adviser to Zelenskyy, denied that any confidentiality agreement existed.

His comments came in response to a Facebook post by Oksana Torop, a media adviser to Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, who criticized Zelenskyy’s disclosure and said the two countries had agreed to keep the transfer confidential.

“There was no such agreement. This is not true,” Lytvyn wrote, later adding that “there was no agreement to remain silent.”

The remarks directly challenged Lee’s account and turned the controversy over the unexpected disclosure into a broader dispute over what the two governments had agreed during months of consultations over the POWs.

In response to the Ukrainian side's denial, Seong Ghi-hong, senior presidential secretary for public relations, called Ukraine’s claim “false” in a statement issued, Sunday, saying it “seriously undermines trust between the two governments.”

“We express strong regret over the unilateral disclosure in violation of the agreement … We demand an official explanation and apology and are considering further necessary measures,” Seong said.

He went onto claim that the dispute had fueled controversy in South Korea over whether Lee had lied about the agreement.

Other Cheong Wa Dae officials did not offer additional comments on Monday. The Ukrainian Embassy in Seoul could not immediately be reached for comment.

Political backlash over NK policy

The controversy is particularly sensitive for Lee and his administration, which has taken a restrained approach toward the North in a bid to revive dialogue with Pyongyang.

Seoul’s decision to keep the POW transfer confidential may also have reflected concerns that the case could complicate efforts to revive U.S.-North Korea dialogue, which the Lee administration has sought to facilitate.

“Seoul appeared to have handled the case cautiously given the possibility of a backlash from Pyongyang,” said Shim Sang-min, a senior research fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies.

The diplomatic dispute has become a source of political contention, with the conservative opposition People Power Party (PPP) accusing the administration of being more concerned about Pyongyang’s reaction than informing the public.

“Was it really so afraid of upsetting (North Korean leader) Kim Jong-un?” PPP floor leader Jeong Jeom-sig wrote on Facebook, questioning why the government had been determined to keep the transfer secret.

PPP lawmaker Ahn Cheol-soo made a similar argument, saying, “If we cannot even independently disclose the repatriation of prisoners because we are watching North Korea’s reaction, then this is not a country.”

Lee hit back at such criticism, arguing that publicizing a sensitive matter for political credit at the expense of people’s lives and national security would be irresponsible.

The ruling Democratic Party of Korea has also defended the government’s handling of the matter. It said confidentiality was necessary to protect the two soldiers and urged the opposition not to turn the case into a political fight.