Seoul-Kyiv prisoner spat

When Ukraine’s president boasted his country had transferred two captured North Korean soldiers to South Korea, Pyongyang went ballistic, but so did Seoul. Now South Korea’s president is facing accusations of covering up the transfer to appease Pyongyang.

Last month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, said two North Korean prisoners of war had been sent to South Korea, which Seoul said was supposed to be a secret. Now, President Lee Jae Myung has accused Kyiv of ‘attempting to provoke a war on the Korean Peninsula.’Photographs courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Opinion

BY GWYNNE DYER

October 5, 2026

LONDON, U.K.—“I would not like to call this an incident. Let’s say it’s a diplomatic misunderstanding,” said Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha. But the South Korean president definitely sees it as a serious incident, and he has already gone publi...

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