Military

South Korea’s presidential office criticises Ukraine for denying POW nondisclosure agreement.

The South Korean president’s office has expressed “strong regret” over Ukraine’s disregard for a nondisclosure agreement with Seoul in the transfer of two North Korean prisoners of war (POWs) to Seoul, South Korean media reported.

Last week, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an address to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) that his country transferred two North Korean POWs to South Korea.

President Lee Jae Myung’s office “expresses strong regret over Ukraine’s unilateral disclosure [of the transfer] and its subsequent false announcement that there had not been a non-disclosure agreement”, the Yonhap news agency quoted Seong Ghi-hong, South Korea’s senior presidential secretary for public relations, as saying in a statement on Sunday.

The office said the nondisclosure agreement aimed to safeguard the soldiers from dangers they could face if their transfer were to be disclosed, in accordance with international law and humanitarian principles.

According to Yonhap, a South Korean media outlet, the Ukrainian presidential office said it had disclosed the transfer of the POWs without extensive details on the process, claiming that it would have been strange to keep the entire transfer a secret. Ukrainian media outlets reported a Ukrainian presidential source as denying the existence of a confidentiality agreement with Seoul, Yonhap said.

The South Korean presidential office said the Ukrainian presidential office’s “false” denial of the confidentiality agreement “seriously hampers” bilateral trust and causes serious disruptions to bilateral friendship.

Seong Ghi-hong said the government was considering additional measures over the issue, if necessary, Yonhap added.

North Korean POWS

Ukrainian forces captured the two North Korean soldiers in Russia’s Kursk region in January 2025.

Mounting evidence, including from intelligence ⁠reports and testimonies of defectors, has indicated that North Korean soldiers resorted to self-detonation or other forms of suicide rather than be captured.

In his UN address, Zelenskyy said, “These guys are not easy to capture alive.” He added, “One of them, when he realised he was going to be taken prisoner, tried to kill himself. And he was shocked that fate did not let him die.”

South Korean media reported that the two captured soldiers had expressed their desire to defect to South Korea.

The issue of North Korean prisoners of war was a key topic during the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkiye, where Lee met Zelenskyy in July.

Senior presidential spokesperson Kang Yu-jung stated afterwards that both leaders agreed to resolve the status of North Korean POWs in accordance with international law. This built on a prior agreement reached during the South Korea-Ukraine foreign ministers’ meeting in March, where both nations pledged to cooperate on the POW issue.

According to South Korean intelligence, North Korea is estimated to have deployed approximately 14,000-15,000 soldiers to support Russia’s efforts in its war with Ukraine since 2024, primarily in the Kursk border region. South Korean, Ukrainian and Western officials said they suffered heavy casualties, with more than 6,000 North Korean soldiers killed in the fighting.

The transfer comes as South Korea has backed efforts to revive dialogue with North Korea, while United States President Donald Trump has renewed his willingness to engage with Pyongyang.

Army chief accuses Eritrea of funding and supporting armed groups to weaken Ethiopia.

Ethiopia’s federal military has said it is handling rising tensions in the country’s north with restraint, as fears grow that Ethiopia could be heading towards another civil war.

In his first comments on the recent military developments, Army Chief of Staff Field Marshal Berhanu Jula said the army was responding to what he called provocations from the Tigray front with “wisdom and restraint”.

He accused Eritrea of funding and supporting armed groups to weaken Ethiopia, describing the “Tsimdo” alliance as an extension of a longstanding pattern of hostile alliances, which he said cannot confront the state without outside backing.

Eritrea, wary that landlocked Ethiopia may be seeking to invade it to gain access to the Red Sea, denied the accusations.

The fighting has spread from Tigray into neighbouring Afar and Amhara regions after seven armed groups announced an alliance, the Ethiopian Peoples’ Forces Alliance for Survival, committed to removing Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government.

In Afar, the latest battles have taken place around Abala, where the military has been trying to prevent rebels from seizing control.

Separately, in North Wollo, a zone of Amhara bordering Tigray, the army said on Thursday it had killed 272 Tigrayan fighters and wounded 260 in a counter-offensive, reporting heavy losses for the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).

The TPLF’s Tigray Army said the federal government had launched a “full-scale offensive” involving infantry, mechanised units and drones.

Abdisalam Balema, a TPLF central committee member, told Al Jazeera the situation had become a “full war”.

Fighting has also continued around Sama, Soqota and Raya Alamata, with government forces reportedly closing in on the town of Alamata.

The army command said it prefers a strategy of “strategic calm” over a large-scale military confrontation, arguing the Tigray front’s popular support is dwindling and its leadership divided.

Internet access was reportedly cut across northern Ethiopia on Friday, a day after the UN said it was alarmed by reports of drones being used against civilians there.

The renewed fighting has put the 2022 Pretoria Agreement, which ended a brutal two-year civil war in Tigray, under severe strain. It comes weeks after Washington lifted sanctions on Ethiopia and Eritrea tied to atrocities from the last war, saying the “national emergency … has expired”.

It marks the most serious challenge yet to that agreement, raising fears of a wider regional conflict that could draw in armed groups from across Ethiopia.

Addressing the UN General Assembly, Ethiopia’s president sought to portray the country as a force for regional stability, accusing unnamed external actors of meddling in Ethiopia’s affairs while highlighting Addis Ababa’s role in supporting peace efforts in neighbouring Sudan.

Alemayehu Weldemariam, a professor of law at Indiana University, told Al Jazeera that the federal government bears much of the blame for the collapse of the Pretoria Agreement.

“This war has been in the making for a while now. Much of the provisions in the cessation of hostilities [in the 2022 agreement] were primarily sabotaged by the federal government itself,” he said, citing fuel, service and cash restrictions imposed on Tigray, and the government’s failure to set up the interim administration the deal had promised.

“What was supposed to be an interim arrangement turned out to be permanent,” with Tigray excluded from national elections since, he added.

Civilians and senior military officials among 14 dead after an army plane crashes into a residential area in the DRC.

At least 14 people, including senior military officials, were killed on Friday when a Congolese army plane crashed in the southwest of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The plane was travelling to the capital, Kinshasa, from the southwestern city of Kikwit on Friday when it developed a technical fault and attempted to land in Kenge, in Kwango province.

Remy Saki Bokinda, deputy governor of Kwango, said: “With no landing strip available in Kenge, the plane crashed into a residential plot.”

Congolese military spokesperson Major-General Efomi Ekenge said 14 people had died in the crash.

“All those on board died; 12 were burned beyond recognition, while the pilot’s lifeless body was found outside the aircraft,” he said.

According to the military, among those killed were civilians and members of an official delegation travelling with the two generals, along with other military personnel.

Bokinda also said most of the bodies were burned beyond recognition and the pilot was found dead outside the wreckage.

An investigation has been opened to determine the cause of the accident, Ekenge said.

The DRC, a vast, mineral-rich country in central Africa, has endured decades of conflict, particularly along its eastern border with Rwanda, where several armed groups compete for control of lucrative mining areas.

The Congolese military has been battling a number of rebel groups that have claimed key cities in the country since last year.