Republic of Korea (ROK) leaders are having to navigate an increasingly challenging policy course to avoid having their country become entangled in an array of dangerous security problems, both in East Asia and elsewhere in the international system.
The most recent example involved Seoul’s actions in Ukraine. In late September 2026, the Kiev regime transferred two North Korean prisoners of war, who had been fighting with Russian forces, to South Korea. That move was highly confidential, lest it put the ROK government in a highly compromising position. Disclosure of the information could not only cause a rift in Seoul’s delicate relations with Moscow, but could also create a dangerous confrontation between the two rival Korean states.
Instead of maintaining the required discretion and confidentiality, however, Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky announced the transfer to the world during a speech before the United Nations General Assembly. Zelensky also sharply criticized North Korea and its leader, Kim Jong-un, for deploying troops on Russia’s behalf. South Korean media then reported that the two captured soldiers had expressed their desire to defect to the ROK. Tensions between North and South Korea promptly spiked.
So did the anger of the ROK administration toward Zelensky. South Korean President Lee Jae Myung immediately accused Ukraine of violating a nondisclosure agreement between Seoul and Kiev about the transfer. Ukraine flatly denied making such a deal. The ROK’s risks of being drawn into the maelstrom of the Russia-Ukraine war seemed to rise.
Seoul already was resisting pressure from Kiev to sell sophisticated weapons to Ukraine. Zelensky’s government has asked the ROK on several occasions, most recently in early August 2026, to send air defense missiles and other crucial systems. Seoul has repeatedly declined those requests. Zelensky’s clumsy conduct regarding the North Korean prisoners of war episode is not likely to enhance Kiev’s prospects going forward.
Yet NATO members, including the United States, have long been pressing the ROK to approve such arms sales. Indeed, Seoul has faced such calls since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. It has not been easy for ROK leaders to resist that pressure, but they have done so to this point.
Lee’s stance on the Ukraine arms sale issue is consistent with his government’s overall policy to try to reduce tensions with North Korea. He has even gone beyond endorsing President Trump’s willingness to hold a summit meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un before the end of 2026. In a major speech in late September, Lee called on the United States to ease its onerous, longstanding economic sanctions against Pyongyang, and to accept a freeze on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program rather than continue Washington’s hoary insistence on the abolition of that program.
South Korea is making a concerted effort to avoid becoming entangled in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, to promote a possible rapprochement between Washington and Pyongyang, and to ease the ROK’s own tensions with North Korea. Lee and his advisers are also attempting to steer a middle course with respect to the mounting animosity between Japan and the People’s Republic of China. Both Beijing and Tokyo seek Seoul’s backing regarding a number of disputes. One emotional spat is the territorial dispute between Japan and the PRC over control of the Senkaku (Diaoyu) islands, which has led to several provocative deployments of maritime vessels in the past year.
