A quarrel between two governments that are usually on friendly terms has reached a new low. South Korea announced on Tuesday that roughly half of the people working at its embassy in Kyiv will leave Ukraine, less than two weeks after Seoul called its ambassador, Park Ki-chang, home.
The trigger dates back to late September. Speaking at the UN General Assembly, Volodymyr Zelensky revealed that two North Korean soldiers captured by Ukraine had been handed over to South Korea. Seoul says both sides had agreed to keep the transfer secret and wants an explanation, an apology and a promise it will not happen again. Voices in Kyiv deny that any such agreement existed, and Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha described the matter as closed on 12 October.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Park Doo-soon gave two reasons for the step: no “constructive steps” from Ukraine since the recall, and the constant danger of missile and drone strikes, which makes staff safety hard to guarantee. Korean media pointed out that the second argument is not new, since the war has been raging since 2022 and Seoul had kept its mission fully staffed until now.
The embassy is not closing. Yoon Ji-wan, the chargé d’affaires, stays in Kyiv together with every consular officer, so the roughly 85 South Koreans still in the country keep their point of contact. No departure date has been fixed, and the ministry will not say how many people work there. Officials stressed that humanitarian and reconstruction aid for Ukraine continues.
South Korea has thinned out embassies before, in Libya in 2015 and in Afghanistan in 2021, but in both cases because of fighting on the ground, not a diplomatic dispute with the host.
