Seoul Threatens Ukraine With 'Further Action' Over Prisoner Row
South Korea’s president has demanded a public apology from Ukraine for revealing that two North Korean prisoners of war had been sent to the South, and threatened unspecified “further action” if none comes. “This is a matter concerning the honor of the Republic of Korea’s people and nation, we cannot overlook it,” Lee Jae Myung said. Seoul has summoned Ukraine’s chargé d’affaires.
The disclosure came in Volodymyr Zelensky’s address to the United Nations General Assembly, and the two governments now disagree about whether it was ever meant to be secret. Seoul says Kyiv asked for confidentiality, partly to protect the soldiers’ families and partly to avoid criticism for giving up a chance to exchange them; Mr Zelensky’s office denies any such agreement, which has inflamed rather than settled it. Mr Lee was pointed about the escalation: “We express serious regret that, instead of acknowledging the facts of the agreement and apologising, they are talking about an imminent military clash between the North and South.” The awkwardness underneath is that South Korea has backed Ukraine while refusing to send lethal weapons to any country at war, and is now asked to absorb the consequences of North Korean troops fighting for Russia. Why Moscow wants that manpower is visible in the arithmetic: the Institute for the Study of War assesses that Russian forces took 175.54 square kilometres in September but lost 256.35, a net loss, while Ukraine’s general staff counted 46,320 Russian casualties in the month, a third consecutive month above forty thousand. Watch what “further action” means, since aid and reconstruction contracts are the available levers.