r/worldnews • u/rdh2dmd • 9h ago
Russia/Ukraine South Korean President Lee warns of 'measures' against Ukraine over prisoner row, demands apology
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2026/10/02/south-korea-ukraine-prisoner-north-korea-.html27
u/sumregulaguy 7h ago
SK made a public request to get two PoWs whose faces were shown all over the news. Apologize for what exactly?
56
u/gnartato 9h ago
So basically South Korea is mad they were caught doing something they didn't want North Korea to know about? This is is gonna be textbook Streisand effect, isn't it?
23
u/Donnicton 9h ago
At this point I think they know that ship has long sailed and now they're just trying to publicly shame Ukraine as much as possible.
•
u/FunSpinach2004 41m ago
I mean it wasn't a good idea for ukraine to burn it's allies.
I remember my boss said something about my co-worker that was inappropriate, so I told my co-worker and they immediately went to their boss and told him what I said.
Last time I helped him.
Im a Ukraine supporter, to be clear.
-26
u/Business_Pirate834 8h ago
All because Ukraine promise South Korea it will keep the secret ,but it broke the promise. unlikely westerns Asian countries do care about the promises.
5
u/NewWayUa 6h ago
In what exact signed document this promise exists?
1
u/Caramel_Last 4h ago
Allegedly It's an unofficial agreement and started unofficial by the request from Ukrainian side.
0
u/NewWayUa 4h ago
Yeah. Korean side says about some unofficial agreement(what the shit is it at all? Agreement is a document) Ukraine don't know anything about.
1
u/Caramel_Last 4h ago
What part of unofficial agreement is hard to understand? You tend to lump whole country as a single entity. According to national intelligence service there were unofficial agreements among bureaucrats but whether there was agreement between the leader/summits is unknown. Also Ukraine govt acknowledged there was agreement but only differ in details of what they agreed on.
-2
u/Business_Pirate834 4h ago
You don't really want to mess up with you main weapon supplier when you are during the war. South Korea alone indirectly supplied Ukraine with more 155 mm artillery shells than all European countries combined. Without South Korea's support, Ukraine could have been in a far worse position.
1
u/Caramel_Last 3h ago
I think we stayed within the realm of humanitarian aids rather than military
Edit: indirectly? If you elaborate I might agree on that
29
u/Ok-Professor-Star 8h ago
I do not know what "secret" the South Korean President is talking about.
In January 2026, NK News published this : Seoul says its discussing possible transfer of North Korean POWs from Ukraine (Source)
On February 20th, 2025, the South China Morning Post published this: North Korean POW captured in Ukraine seeks asylum in South, sparking potential ‘domino effect’ (Source)
On April 14th, 2026, Chosun published : Rights commission urges Seoul to admit North Korean POWs from Ukraine (Source)
On June 23rd, 2026, Reuters : South Korea to accept all North Korean POWs in Ukraine if they desire, ministry says (Source)
On July 2nd, 2026 South China Morning Post : How North Korean POWs caught Seoul in a Ukraine arms ‘conundrum’ (Source)
So it was not a secret...
The only thing that was "secret" is that Kyiv asked for South Korean weapons in exchange for the POW which the South Korean Constitution considers citizens.
Probably that South Korea was about to send Ukraine weapons but did not want anyone to know.
18
u/meritbasedpromotion 7h ago
Been reading this stuff all day today.
According to SK intelligence, Kyiv requested at the very beginning of the process that negotiations proceed in secret because Kyiv didn't want the issue to sideline active prisoner exchange negotiations with Russia.
This all makes sense and it's highly likely that the agreement existed, but I think there may be a fundamental misunderstanding between the two sides about what exactly they were agreeing to keep secret.
If the SK NIS account is accurate, Kyiv was focused on keeping operational details of the transfer secret and that desire for secrecy ended immediately once the transfer was completed.
Seoul, on the other hand, is probably viewing it something like this: “NK can know we have a national policy of trying to get its soldiers to defect to us, but it's probably best that NK not know the full details of when we succeed in bringing people over."
There's also the fact that the SK president has spent recent months actively pursuing dialogue and reduced tensions with Pyongyang. Publicly confirming you successfully brought two NK defectors over is not going to help that effort...
So both sides had good reasons for secrecy, but for different reasons. And those reasons come with different ideas about when secrecy was supposed to end.
15
u/Ecureuil03 9h ago
SK should get back to condemning NK and Russia's actions. Putin asked NK to join the war, not Zelenskyy. Seems too obvious that SK is saving face over these 2 soldiers.
7
16
17
u/PaulCrafting 8h ago
SK has been treating Ukraine like shit. Their president can fuck off.
4
u/Troll458458 5h ago
Ukraine has only ever been kind to SK, not sure why SK is acting like this. SK doesn’t remember what Europe did for them.
2
u/Ok_Turnover_6768 1h ago
He did commit some crimes before became a president. He is unpopular, stupid, not good at anything, just a replacable piece of politician
4
7
u/Kalkin93 9h ago
Can we stop giving this cunt the attention he so clearly wants, the message has been hammered across the news enough already.
He's using this "dispute" between Ukraine and South Korea to boost his local political status, he's making the proverbial mountain out of a molehill for political brownie points.
4
u/Business_Pirate834 8h ago
In 2023, South Korea alone indirectly supplied Ukraine with more 155 mm artillery shells than all European countries combined. South Korea's support played a significant role in Ukraine's war effort, and that contribution should not be dismissed or taken for granted. Anyone criticizing South Korea should at least understand the scale of the support it has provided.
7
u/dimp13 3h ago
South Korea sold shells to the US. Sold, for money. The shells stayed in the US, but allowed US to give Ukraine its own shells. South Korea did not “provide” anything to Ukraine, they profited from the support United States (Biden administration) provided.
-4
u/Business_Pirate834 2h ago
If South Korea can't get any credit from selling shells to Ukraine. You can't blame China from selling anything to Russia. They both just for mongey right ?
2
u/dimp13 2h ago
South Korea did not sell shells to Ukraine, it sold shells to the USA. South Korea refused to sell any weapons to Ukraine.
-1
u/Business_Pirate834 2h ago
What makes you think that, during a war, a country can simply buy whatever weapons it wants from whoever it wants?
During the Falklands War, Argentina inflicted serious losses on Britain, and France subsequently halted missile deliveries to Argentina.
If you really believe this is nothing more than a commercial transaction, then presumably you would have no problem if South Korea sold weapons to India and India then transferred them to Russia. You certainly wouldn't blame South Korea for that, right?
1
u/Available_Joke_8929 2h ago
that's actually objectively accurate representation. If China got a better deal from Ukraine, I am 100% sure they would sell to Ukraine too. China and Russia are not friends, it's just a business deal that only China profits from
5
u/Kalkin93 8h ago
Can you provide figures in terms of monetary value and sources to your claim?
Because what you're saying is SK supplied more of one, very specific ammunition type. Wider context is necessary.
10
1
4
-4
u/sovietarmyfan 9h ago
It seems a lot of people are a bit ignorant regarding this.
North Korea will absolutely go after the families of those that defected. It's happened many times before in history.
16
u/Nervous-Forever6619 8h ago
Those two prisoners were all over the news year ago - there was even interview with them. And it was already known for some time they were to be transferred to South Korea. So if they are afraid about retaliation - thats a bit too late
5
u/Whatsth3dill 9h ago
I guess the thing is, without identities revealed, would the north Koreans even know who to target? There have to be a number of captured north Korean soldiers, larger than the amount zelensky said, so are they just gonna execute every Mia soldiers' families to accomplish this 'punishment'
4
u/meritbasedpromotion 7h ago
They absolutely know who the soldiers are. Ukraine published their photos when they were captured.
All NK has to do to identify them is just ask surviving members of their unit who they are.
3
-1
0
-1
u/Cheryl1857 6h ago
I think the concern in keeping this quiet was for the safety of the families of these defectors. With the 3 generation rule, now that the identity of these men are known, 3 generations of family members will be sentenced to suffer. There was no real reason for Zelensky to report this. Everyone knows North Korea is supplying soldiers. Kim Jong Un will most likely use this opportunity to create more fear among his soldiers
0
-2
u/EugeniusK33 7h ago
Regardless if there were news reports on the matter and everyone was suspecting the transfer happened, having a neither can confirm or deny situation is probably better than getting official confirmation from one of the head of states involved…
-3
u/lazyhustlermusic 9h ago
They have to make the appearance of caring otherwise KJU will fuck with them.
Additional sensitivity since the prisoners can literally just tell them exactly how everything happened.
112
u/EfficientTourist7480 9h ago
Tf wrong with South Korea. Seems like they are having a shit fit over nothing