Why South Korea and Ukraine Are Fighting Over Two Prisoners of War
· Time
On Sept. 23, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine spoke at the UN General Assembly about the military support Russia was getting from North Korea and the deaths of North Korean soldiers on the Ukrainian front. “Recently, we sent two North Korean prisoners of war to the Republic of Korea,” he revealed. He seemed to be trying to highlight the global reach of Russia’s war and also hoping that the revelation would increase popular and political support in Seoul for providing weapons and aid to Ukraine.
Zelensky ended up igniting a diplomatic dispute between Ukraine and South Korea. Seoul claimed that Ukraine had agreed to keep the transfer confidential; Kyiv denied that such an agreement existed and downplayed the episode as a misunderstanding. Now South Korea is recalling its ambassador to Ukraine.
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The quarrel over diplomatic protocol highlights the human cost paid by two soldiers caught in a geopolitical conflict linking European and Northeast Asian security. Their story captures the complicated geopolitics of the two Koreas now playing out on a European battlefield. It also underscores South Korea’s push for inter-Korean peace, even as North Korea tests Seoul’s patience by launching hypersonic missiles and planting landmines.
The men from North Korea
The two soldiers at the center of the dispute were captured while fighting in the Kursk region of Russia in January 2025. They were part of a 10,000-strong North Korean contingent reinforcing Russian troops on the front line. Shortly after their capture, Ukraine’s military released video footage of the two soldiers. The images helped confirm North Korea’s direct involvement in the Russia-Ukraine war. Human Rights Watch raised concerns about Ukraine’s decision to release the video and expose the soldiers, given the potential repercussions for their families in North Korea, including torture, forced labor, imprisonment, or execution.
North Korean soldiers are instructed to take their own lives rather than risk capture. One of the captured soldiers reportedly attempted suicide before a Ukrainian medic stopped him. In North Korea’s eyes, a soldier who survives by surrendering, or worse by defecting to the South, is a traitor. Under the regime’s well-documented system of collective punishment, three generations of a defector’s family can face retribution through guilt by association.
By revealing the prisoner of war transfer to South Korea in New York, Zelensky offered Pyongyang an incentive to make an example of these soldiers’ families to demonstrate the consequences of defection. This stands in stark contrast to the regime’s response to the deaths of North Korean soldiers in Russia. Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea, promised their surviving families a “beautiful life” and granted them new luxury apartments.
The North Korean regime may have already tracked down the families of the prisoners of war after Ukraine confirmed their capture in January 2025. But Zelensky’s disclosure at the United Nations renewed the danger facing the two soldiers now resettled in South Korea, a point Seoul highlighted in its protest to Kyiv. A life in South Korea offers these soldiers personal safety, but one could imagine it might come at a crushing cost: abandoning their homes and living with the guilt that their families may suffer in their place.
Mending the rupture between Seoul and Kyiv
If this episode were only about the two North Korean soldiers, their resettlement might have passed unnoticed. The diplomatic kerfuffle between Kyiv and Seoul is rooted in the different geopolitical narratives that each nation seeks to project, or in Seoul’s case, downplay.
For Ukraine, publicizing the presence and resettlement of North Korean prisoners of war provides a valuable opportunity to solicit support from South Korea, a major arms exporter and a vital partner to NATO. Since 2022, Kyiv has been urging Seoul to supply it with lethal weapons, including Patriot interceptors and 155mm artillery shells. In light of Pyongyang’s direct military support for Moscow, Ukraine has intensified pressure on South Korea to move beyond non-lethal military, humanitarian, and economic assistance.
For South Korea, Ukraine’s public disclosure of the resettlement of these soldiers undermines its diplomatic outreach to North Korea. In his address to the UN General Assembly, President Lee Jae Myung of South Korea reiterated his vision of inclusive, peaceful coexistence built on “respect for each other’s systems” and the restoration of cross-border trust with North Korea. Accepting North Korean soldiers while publicly promoting dialogue weakens Lee’s reassurances to Pyongyang that Seoul desires “stable, peaceful coexistence.”
Pyongyang has maintained silence regarding these two soldiers. But North Korea considers South Korea’s reception of defectors as part of an effort to undermine its regime and eventually bring about unification on Seoul’s terms. While North Korea now defines the Koreas as two separate states, article four of South Korea’s constitution commits the nation to “peaceful unification based on the basic free and democratic order.”
As two nations dedicated to promoting freedom and democratic principles, South Korea and Ukraine must look beyond this diplomatic disagreement to protect their partnership. Seoul provided $400 million in aid to Ukraine in 2024 and announced $2.3 billion in long-term reconstruction aid through 2027. In return, Ukraine offers critical, real-world intelligence on North Korean military tactics and the weapons technology Pyongyang receives from Russia.
Given the complex legal situation of North Korean combatants captured by Ukrainian forces, Kyiv and Seoul must establish a protocol for handling North Korean prisoners of war and non-combatant defectors who seek asylum in South Korea. The need for such a policy will only grow. Similar episodes may unfold as the presence of North Korean troops and laborers in Russia grows, increasing the potential for future defections. Zelensky recently warned that another 10,000 troops from North Korea could soon be deployed in Russia.
With Kyiv’s cooperation, Seoul should affirm its commitment to accept future North Korean prisoners who voluntarily request resettlement, subject to standard security screening. That policy must fully comply with South Korean law and uphold international humanitarian principles and the values of a democratic society. To safeguard these individuals, both governments should protect prisoners’ identities, grant confidential access to impartial humanitarian representatives, and ensure that decisions are not made under coercion. Prisoners of war should not be forcibly repatriated, and public announcements of their transfer must be avoided without their explicit consent.
Crucially, not every captured North Korean soldier will want to go to South Korea. Their wishes must be determined through private, independent interviews conducted without pressure from governments, intelligence agencies, advocacy groups, or the media. Both governments may have followed such protocols. It remains unclear whether Ukraine eventually deviated from the agreed approach script or whether there was simply miscommunication.
Yet for the two soldiers already resettled, no policy can erase the personal toll. They must now rebuild their lives in a country they were raised to view as the enemy while carrying the lingering anguish about the fate of the families they left behind.