· · ·

South Korea Pulls Half Its Kyiv Embassy Staff Over POW Dispute

Seoul will withdraw about half its embassy staff from Kyiv after Ukraine disclosed the transfer of two North Korean POWs it says was to stay confidential.

ByPeter Updated
Ornate cream and green building with trees and parked cars on Striletska Street in Kyiv
The Embassy of the Republic of Korea on Striletska Street, Kyiv, May 2012. Photo by Kholodovsky via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

SEOUL, Oct. 20, 2026 — South Korea will pull part of its embassy staff out of Ukraine, its Foreign Ministry announced on Oct. 20. The step deepens a month-long dispute over Kyiv’s public disclosure that it had handed two captured North Korean soldiers to Seoul.

What Seoul announced

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Park Doo-soon gave two reasons at a regular briefing, according to SBS and Yonhap. He said Ukraine had taken “no forward-looking measures” since South Korea recalled its ambassador, and that “ongoing threats of airstrikes across Ukraine” made it difficult to guarantee staff safety.

“Even during the withdrawal, necessary diplomatic communication between the two countries will continue under the leadership of the chargé d’affaires,” Park said, adding that “all consular staff will remain to do their utmost to protect overseas citizens.”

The ministry did not give a number. An official told Yonhap that about half of the mission’s staff would leave, while Chargé d’Affaires Yoon Ji-wan stays in Kyiv. No departure date has been set. Officials told Yonhap the diplomats will leave after the ministry helps the roughly 85 South Korean nationals living in Ukraine evacuate to neighboring countries, and that Kyiv was told of the decision in advance through diplomatic channels.

Seoul has pulled embassy staff before, from Libya in 2015 and Afghanistan in 2021, Yonhap noted, but both cases followed a collapse in local security. South Korea kept its full Kyiv mission in place through more than four years of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

How the dispute began

President Volodymyr Zelensky revealed the transfer of the two prisoners to South Korea in his speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 23. Seoul said the two governments had agreed to keep the repatriation confidential and that Kyiv broke that agreement, Yonhap reported.

Ukraine’s Presidential Office said it would have been “strange” to keep the entire transfer secret and initially said no confidentiality agreement existed, the Kyiv Independent reported. Seoul then summoned Ukraine’s chargé d’affaires on Sept. 28.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung escalated on Oct. 2. “If you (Ukraine) continue to refuse to acknowledge the facts and to issue a public apology, we will take additional measures,” he said, adding in a social media post: “As this is a matter concerning the honor of the Republic of Korea’s people and nation, we cannot overlook it.”

On Oct. 6, Seoul said an apology it had received from Kyiv differed “from the level we expect.” Two days later it recalled Ambassador Park Ki-chang. Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi responded that “diplomacy should prevail over emotions.” Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha has called the episode a “diplomatic misunderstanding” and said on Oct. 12 that he considered the matter closed, according to Yonhap.

Seoul’s conditions for the diplomats’ return are a clear explanation, an apology and a pledge that it will not happen again, Yonhap reported. A ministry official told SBS that “unless Ukraine takes forward-looking steps, it will not be easy for embassy personnel to return.”

The prisoners at the center

Zelensky said on Jan. 11, 2025 that Ukrainian troops had captured the two soldiers in Russia’s Kursk region and that both, though wounded, were in the custody of Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) in Kyiv. The SBU said it was questioning them with the help of Korean translators and South Korean intelligence, the Kyiv Independent reported.

Their capture offered Ukraine physical evidence of a deployment Washington had already tracked. On Nov. 6, 2024, the foreign ministers of the United States, South Korea, eight other countries and the European Union’s High Representative said in a joint statement released by the State Department that “several thousands of DPRK troops have been deployed to Russia,” calling it “a dangerous expansion of the conflict.” The Congressional Research Service says North Korea sent more than 10,000 troops who helped Russia retake Kursk in March 2025, and that a North Korean memorial built in 2026 appears to list over 2,000 names of soldiers killed in Russia.

What it means

Analysis: SBS called the withdrawal one of the highest levels of diplomatic countermeasures, second only to severing relations or closing a mission. It also noted that Seoul needs Kyiv’s cooperation on issues from North Korea–Russia ties to postwar reconstruction. A ministry official told Yonhap that South Korea’s willingness to provide humanitarian and reconstruction aid to Ukraine is unchanged. Watch for a fuller Ukrainian apology or explanation, which Seoul has named as the path back, and for any further South Korean measures.

Sources

Related coverage

Additional sources

Recommended articles