Seoul warns 'further action' if Ukraine does not apologise over prisoner-of-war row

What the report says

South Korea’s President Lee Jae Myung has warned that Seoul may take unspecified further steps if Ukraine does not publicly apologise over a dispute involving two North Korean prisoners of war. The row centres on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s disclosure at the UN General Assembly that the men had been transferred to South Korea, a revelation Seoul says was meant to remain confidential.

According to the BBC, South Korean officials argue Ukraine had asked for the transfer to stay secret, partly to protect the prisoners’ families and partly to avoid losing a possible exchange option for Ukrainian captives. Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, has described the matter as a diplomatic misunderstanding and said Kyiv is working to resolve it. Zelensky’s office has denied there was any confidentiality agreement, deepening the disagreement.

The incident has also become politically sensitive inside South Korea, where the opposition has accused Lee of covering up the transfer to avoid upsetting Pyongyang. Lee rejected Ukraine’s framing of the issue, saying it touches on the dignity of the Korean people and accusing Kyiv of trying to provoke instability on the Korean Peninsula. The dispute matters because Seoul has backed Ukraine diplomatically since Russia’s full-scale invasion, while still refusing to supply lethal weapons to countries at war.