NARRATIVE: Seoul knew Zelensky would mention the two prisoners, just not in which words

Not a betrayal

Wednesday, New York

It isn’t a betrayal.

It isn’t a leak either. Zelensky spoke from the rostrum of the United Nations General Assembly, on Wednesday, September 23, 2026, in New York.

It isn’t a state secret thrown to the wolves. No names. No transfer date. No route.

Nor is it a rupture between allies. Seoul’s support for Ukraine continues, the South Korean presidential office says.

Not even a surprise, as we have known since Friday.

Seoul knew. It just didn’t know the words.

The reproach and the admission both come from Mexico City, where Lee Jae-myung is on a state visit. Between them, a few hours. And a question of vocabulary that two allies turned, for a day, into an affair of state.

Fourteen words

In the text published by Ukraine’s presidential office, the sentence runs to 14 words: “Recently, we sent two North Korean prisoners of war to the Republic of Korea.”

Fourteen words for two prisoners of war. Two men who, in some media interviews, seemed to want to go to the South, according to the Associated Press.

That is the unit of this story. The sentence. The one you speak. The one you hold back. The one you regret.

A sentence doesn’t betray. It exposes.

Kursk, January 2025

The first taken alive

It all begins in Russia’s Kursk region, in January 2025.

Ukrainian forces capture two North Korean soldiers there. It is the first known capture of soldiers from the Pyongyang regime since their deployment, Al Jazeera recalls.

Zelensky announces the capture that same month, the Kyiv Post writes.

January in Kursk. Cold that bites the fingers. The hum of drones over the lines.

The South says yes

Seoul reacts quickly. According to the AP, the South Korean government asks Kyiv not to send the two men back to the North, where they could face persecution. It says it is ready to take them in if they wish.

In some interviews, the two soldiers seem to express that wish. To go South.

Zelensky, for his part, had raised another option. He said he was considering handing them back to Kim Jong Un in exchange for Ukrainian prisoners held by Russia, Al Jazeera reports.

Human rights groups then pressed him to send them South, because of the punishment they could face in the North, according to the same source. Months of consultations between Kyiv and Seoul followed, the AP writes.

Two doors. One to the North. One to the South.

A capture, then twenty months to choose a door.

Soldiers as currency

Fifteen thousand soldiers

The two men didn’t end up in Kursk by chance.

South Korean intelligence estimated in April 2025 that the Pyongyang regime had sent about 15,000 soldiers to Russia since October 2024. About 2,000 had died there, according to the same estimate, reported by the AP.

In April 2025, Pyongyang and Moscow confirmed that their soldiers had fought together to push back the Ukrainian incursion into the Kursk region.

The two regimes have never said how many North Korean soldiers were deployed, the AP notes. The figure comes from Seoul. The silence comes from Pyongyang.

What Kim gets

At the UN, Zelensky recalls the broadcasts from Pyongyang, when the regime honoured its dead. He asks why Koreans should give their lives in a war against Ukraine.

He answers himself: “Kim Jong Un uses them like currency.” And he gets something in return.

What? The Ukrainian president points to improved ballistic missiles and far more capable drones. The regime’s neighbours have probably noticed, he says.

The AP adds that Pyongyang has supplied Moscow with artillery shells and ballistic missiles in large quantities. Seoul, Washington and their partners fear technology transfers to the North’s nuclear and ballistic programs.

That is the backdrop. A decision in Pyongyang. Fifteen thousand men. Two who survive capture.

The regime pays in soldiers. It cashes in missiles.

Twenty months without a word

March, then Ankara

Between Kyiv and Seoul, the file moves forward quietly.

In March 2026, according to Al Jazeera, the two countries’ foreign ministers pledged to cooperate on these prisoners within a humanitarian framework.

In July 2026, in Ankara, Lee Jae-myung met Zelensky. The South Korean presidential office’s senior spokesperson, Kang Yoo-jung, then said the two leaders wanted to settle the prisoners’ status under international law and humanitarian principles. While respecting the wishes of the men themselves.

An understanding of silence

A senior South Korean presidential official summed it up this way, according to the Korea JoongAng Daily: Seoul wanted to handle the file quietly, and as quickly as possible.

There was a mutual understanding with Ukraine. No publicity. A discreet process.

Seoul had explained its position to Kyiv, the official adds: the transfer was not to be made public. The South Korean government, he says, has always sought to handle this file according to the individuals’ free will, domestic law, international law and humanitarian principles.

My reading fits in one sentence. This quarrel is about wording, not betrayal, and the real price of every word falls on two nameless men and on their families left in the North.

Twenty months of discretion, then a rostrum.

Fourteen words at the rostrum

September 23

A UN hall is a murmur of interpretation in the earpieces. Creaking chairs. Delegations coming and going.

That Wednesday, Zelensky speaks at length. He speaks of the Russian war. He speaks of losses. He speaks of drones. And of Kim Jong Un, who sent his troops to shore up the Russian army’s weak points, he says.

Then comes the sentence. Two prisoners sent to the Republic of Korea.

He adds: “These guys are not easy to capture alive.” One of them, he says, tried to take his own life when he was captured, and was stunned to have survived.

What the sentence is for

The sentence isn’t dropped at random. It serves an argument.

Zelensky says the Northern regime strips its soldiers of freedom and of “their right to choose.” That it drills into them that they must die. Then he asks the hall whether it really wants to give such a force more time to learn how to wage war.

The sentence lands in the middle of a passage on Russia and its allies, not in a chapter on Korea. It follows the missiles. It comes before the question.

In other words, the two prisoners are evidence. Not a confidence.

Zelensky gives no details of the transfer, the AP notes. No date. No route.

Fourteen words to prove. None to locate.

Seoul confirms without confirming

The ministry

In Seoul, the Foreign Ministry doesn’t confirm directly, the AP reports.

It says it is consulting Kyiv and other parties to settle the matter with respect for the soldiers’ free will, international law and humanitarian principles.

Not a word on the soldiers’ fate. Not a word on the date or the route of the transfer. Not a word on what the consultations covered.

The reason fits in one line. A sensitive matter, touching the safety of the soldiers and their families.

The presidential office

According to the Ukrainian official quoted by the Kyiv Post, Lee’s office confirmed shortly after the speech that the transfer had taken place, following direct dialogue between Kyiv and Seoul.

The ministry denies nothing either, Al Jazeera notes. It doesn’t deny. It doesn’t specify.

The ministry stays silent on details. The presidential office confirms the fact.

And yet the fact had already been said. From the rostrum. Before the world.

The fact is public. The details stay in the safe.

Thursday, Mexico City

Lee’s message

Two days earlier, on September 22, Lee Jae-myung had spoken from the UN rostrum himself, according to the Kyiv Post.

On Thursday, September 24, he is on a state visit to Mexico. During the visit, with President Claudia Sheinbaum, he launches a dialogue on supply chains, the Korea JoongAng Daily reports. On Thursday, he posts on X.

He calls it deeply regrettable that Ukraine made the matter public. He speaks of a breach of the confidentiality agreement.

The repatriation of North Korean prisoners, he writes, is a highly sensitive issue for diplomacy, national security and the balance of the peninsula.

He says he doesn’t know why Kyiv chose to break the agreement.

The pressure he refused

Lee adds an admission. Calls to make the return public came from his own government and from the opposition, the Kyiv Post reports.

The People Power Party, the main opposition party, was demanding explanations for the silence, according to the Seoul Economic Daily.

Lee acknowledges that the news would have helped his approval rating. He refused. He calls that temptation a reckless and cruel approach.

The word cruel in his message is therefore aimed first at the showcase being offered to him in Seoul, according to the Kyiv Post. The regret is aimed at Kyiv.

Those who would have trumpeted the news to take credit for it, he writes, would have weighed neither inter-Korean relations, nor lives, nor the national interest.

He refused the credit. He didn’t choose the moment.

Kyiv answers

An unnamed official

The Ukrainian answer came through the South Korean press.

Asked by South Korean media, an unnamed official in the Ukrainian presidential office said Kyiv had informed Seoul in advance of Zelensky’s intention, according to the Kyiv Post.

The announcement, he said, simply noted that the repatriation had taken place. Without saying how. Without saying when.

He doesn’t talk about the understanding. He talks about advance notice. That isn’t the same thing, and everyone knows it.

The impossible secret

He adds that it would have been strange to keep it secret. Lee’s office had itself confirmed the transfer shortly after the speech, he says.

Kyiv says: we warned you. Seoul says: we had an agreement.

Who was right?

Both sentences can be true at once.

I admit it. I first read Lee’s anger as a slap at Kyiv. I read it wrong.

Two allies, two truths, one sentence.

What Seoul was right to fear

The safety of two families

Seoul’s objection is strong. It deserves its full form.

A transfer like this involves the safety of two men and of their families, the South Korean ministry says. Every detail made public could be useful to someone in the North.

Lee puts it differently. Keeping the matter quiet was appropriate in every respect, he writes, given the many problems disclosure can cause.

Zelensky stepped outside the understanding

It has to be said, because it costs our side. The South Korean presidential office says Zelensky’s remarks drifted somewhat from the prior understanding, according to the Korea JoongAng Daily.

There was an understanding of discretion. Zelensky stepped outside it. Giving notice is not getting agreement.

In Ankara, the two presidents had promised to respect the wishes of the men concerned. What they wanted, according to the interviews cited by the AP, was the South. Nothing in the record says what they thought of a rostrum.

And it is the same Zelensky who had once raised handing the two men back to Kim in exchange for Ukrainian prisoners, according to Al Jazeera.

And yet notice counts. The South Korean presidential office would come to admit it.

Kyiv gave notice. Kyiv didn’t get agreement.

Friday’s admission

4:27 p.m. in Seoul

On Friday, September 25, 2026, at 4:27 p.m. Seoul time, the Korea JoongAng Daily published an account of a briefing held in Mexico City. In New York, it was 3:27 a.m.

A senior South Korean presidential official admitted there that the Ukrainian side had informed Seoul in advance and asked for its understanding.

Seoul knew, through diplomatic channels, that the speech might mention the prisoners’ repatriation. What remained unclear, he said, was exactly how it would be worded.

The wording

The whole dispute lies there. Not in the fact. In the way of saying it.

Zelensky’s remarks, the official adds, moved things a little away from the prior understanding. A little. The phrase is his, and it weighs less than the deep regret written the day before on X.

The same official adds that Foreign Minister Cho Hyun’s discussions with Kyiv on support for Ukraine are a separate matter. That support has existed, he says. It will continue.

Seoul knew. It didn’t know the words. It keeps helping.

A quarrel over wording, not over the alliance.

Two men, no names

The ones who said nothing

In this story, everyone talks. Zelensky at the UN. Lee on X. A Ukrainian official to the press. A South Korean official in Mexico City.

Two people don’t talk.

They didn’t choose the rostrum. They didn’t choose the moment. They didn’t choose the fourteen words.

Who asked them?

What remains in the North

The South Korean ministry refuses to disclose their fate, the date or the route of the transfer. For the sake of their safety. And their families’.

Their families. The word is in the statement. It says what it doesn’t spell out.

We don’t know where they sleep. That’s deliberate. It is even the one protection nobody, in Kyiv or in Seoul, disputes.

In the North, according to Zelensky, soldiers are taught to die rather than be taken. These two did not die. They are in the South.

Somewhere in the North, there is a family whose safety now depends on nobody…

Everyone spoke. Except them.

One sentence too many

What the sentence cost

For Kyiv, it won an argument at the UN. The Pyongyang regime trains its soldiers to die, and two of them are in the South.

For Seoul, it cost an understanding of discretion and a few days of embarrassment. Support continues, the presidential office says.

For the two men, nobody can measure it yet.

Zelensky wanted to convince the hall not to give more time to an army learning war in Ukraine. Lee wanted to protect an understanding and two lives. Each was defending something true.

Neither Kyiv nor Seoul

Here is my verdict. The cost of this sentence lies neither in Kyiv nor in Seoul. It has been shifted onto two men and their families, who signed no understanding.

A sentence can prove. A sentence can expose. A sentence can do both at once.

And yet the real signatory of this file is neither Lee nor Zelensky. It is the regime that sent fifteen thousand soldiers to serve as currency.

Two presidents argue. Two men carry the risk.

Two names that won’t be said

What was said

Fourteen words were spoken in New York. A message was written in Mexico City. An admission was made the next day.

No name was spoken. None should be.

The South Korean ministry said it would say nothing more. The Ukrainian presidential office said nothing more. It may be the only understanding still holding between the two capitals, and it is the right one.

The silence owed to them

When a democracy takes in two men who asked for the South, how much silence does it owe them, and how much truth does it owe its own citizens?

Lee chose silence. Zelensky chose the sentence. Seoul knew it was coming.

The two men are in the South.

Fourteen words. Two men. No names.

We knew the words. We won’t know the names.

Sources:

Primary Sources:

• Presidential Office of Ukraine — Zelensky’s address to the UN General Assembly, September 24, 2026
• Associated Press — the two prisoners’ transfer and the South Korean ministry’s statement, September 23, 2026
• Korea JoongAng Daily — Seoul’s presidential office admits it was given notice, September 25, 2026

Secondary Sources:

• Kyiv Post — Lee’s reproach and Kyiv’s answer, September 25, 2026
• Seoul Economic Daily — Lee and the opposition on the disclosure, September 25, 2026
• Al Jazeera — the 2025 capture, the Ankara summit and the UN speech, September 24, 2026