President Lee Jae-myung said the government will take retaliatory steps if Kyiv continues to deny a pact over the handover of captured soldiers. Lee has urged Ukraine to acknowledge a confidentiality agreement and issue an official apology after the transfer of two North Korean prisoners of war to Seoul was made public. The South Korean presidential office warned that it is contemplating additional measures because the disclosure seriously damaged mutual trust and triggered domestic controversy.

The diplomatic row began when President Volodymyr Zelensky revealed the transfer during a speech at the UN General Assembly. Seoul alleges that Ukraine itself insisted on secrecy to avoid domestic criticism over the loss of a potential prisoner exchange opportunity and to protect the families of the POWs in North Korea. Kyiv denies that any such pact existed, arguing that concealing the prisoners' fate would have been wrong. The transferred soldiers are the first North Koreans taken alive since Pyongyang entered the war in 2024.