Zelenskyy adviser denies agreement with Seoul to keep transfer of North Korean POWs secret

STANISLAV POHORILOV - 25 September, 14:47

Captured North Korean soldiers in January 2025. Photo collage: Ukrainska Pravda

Dmytro Lytvyn, communications adviser to the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has denied that Ukraine breached any agreement with South Korea not to disclose information about the transfer of two North Korean prisoners of war.

Source: Lytvyn's comment in response to a post by Oksana Torop, media adviser to Ukraine's Ambassador to the UK Valerii Zaluzhnyi

Details: Torop wrote that Zelenskyy went to New York and publicly announced the transfer of the POWs to South Korea. "But there is a catch – an agreement between the countries and a non-disclosure agreement… And yet we know about it. A show, hype, a striking effect for a striking picture. Here we go…," she wrote.

Lytvyn replied under the post that this was not true. "There was no such agreement. That is false. And it would be wrong to conceal where particular prisoners are being sent," he said.

Previously: Earlier, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung said that Ukraine had breached a non-disclosure agreement by publicly revealing the transfer of two North Korean prisoners of war to South Korea, and that making the information public could lead to numerous problems.

Background:

In 2025, the Ukrainian military captured two North Korean soldiers in Russia's Kursk Oblast.
It later emerged that a fake military ID discovered on a captured North Korean soldier in Kursk Oblast had been issued in the name of a real person from the Russian Republic of Tyva (Tuva).
During his address to the UN General Assembly on 23 September, Zelenskyy said Ukraine recently transferred two North Korean prisoners of war to South Korea.
He also said that one of the North Korean soldiers had tried to take his own life after realising he had been captured, saying this reflected the way people are indoctrinated in North Korea.
Zelenskyy also addressed representatives of 47 countries whose citizens Russia is using in its war against Ukraine, urging them to look after their nationals and prevent Russia from drawing them into the war and sending them to fight on a foreign front.

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