President Lee Jae-myung: 'Those who harm security for credit are traitors'

President Lee Jae-myung expressed regret that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky broke a confidential agreement when he announced in his UN General Assembly speech on the 23rd (local time) that two North Korean prisoners of war had been sent to South Korea. The disclosure made public a security-related matter that the two countries had agreed to keep confidential. North Korean POWs refer to North Korean soldiers captured by Ukrainian forces in the Russia-Ukraine war.

On the 24th, President Lee posted on X (formerly Twitter) under the title 'Governance must be for the nation and its people, not for the interests or popularity of those in power,' criticizing that the disclosure of the POW repatriation was an attempt to salvage his approval ratings. He said the issue of repatriating North Korean POWs was a sensitive matter that heavily affects diplomacy, security, and the situation on the Korean Peninsula, and that keeping it confidential was valid in every respect.

He said that those who harm lives, national interests, and security for petty gains—that is, for credit—should be called murderers or traitors.