South Korean president announces more support for Ukraine, not weapons

First modification: 07/15/2023 – 17:17

4 min

During his visit to Kiev for a meeting with President Zelensky, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said his country will provide a larger batch of non-lethal military assistance supplies and humanitarian aid to Ukraine. This means more support for Ukraine, but so far it has not specifically talked about weapons, as the United States and Zelensky himself have requested on other occasions.

Yoon and South Korean First Lady Kim Keon-hee arrived in Ukraine on a surprise visit, after Yoon attended a NATO alliance summit in Lithuania and visited Poland this week, where he expressed solidarity with Ukraine against the Russian invasion.

The summit between Yoon and Zelensky is the second between the two leaders, after the one they held within the framework of the G7 summit, which was held in May in Hiroshima (Japan), and to which both South Korea and Ukraine attended as invited nations.

At a press conference on Saturday, July 15, Yoon said that South Korea plans to provide “a larger scale of military supplies” to Ukraine this year, such as ambulances or mine detectors, which were sent last week, following the provision in 2022 of non-lethal supplies such as bulletproof vests and helmets.

He also said he plans to provide Ukraine with $150 million in humanitarian aid this year. In addition, he will cooperate with kyiv in the construction of infrastructure, which can be supported by soft loans from South Korea.

“We are discussing everything that is important for people’s normal and safe life,” Zelenskiy said, thanking Yoon for his “powerful” support.

In 2022, the humanitarian aid of the South Korean government was 100 million dollars and sent more than 20 tons of humanitarian aid items to the front, destined for the population of the European country and for refugees. Among the items sent were defibrillators, general purpose fans and first aid kits, but no weapons.

Why is this meeting with South Korea strategic?

South Korea could play a determining role in this war if its president so decides. It is an ally of the United States and the ninth largest arms exporter in the world, according to the think tank. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). However, he knows of Russia’s influence over North Korea and has resisted Western pressure to directly help arm Ukraine.

Although the South Korean Executive has maintained its position of not directly supplying offensive weapons to a State at war; in April this year, Yoon suggested the possibility of supplying arms to Ukraine if Russian troops indiscriminately targeted civilians.

This allusion, which cheered countries like the US and Ukraine, generated Russia’s threat to supply North Korea with sophisticated weapons if the South decided to deliver lethal weapons to Ukraine. This has since cooled the possibility of Seoul taking a more active role in terms of military support.

And while Seoul has repeatedly argued that its aid can only be humanitarian, NATO continues to profile South Korea as a potential ally in arms shipments to Ukraine, especially after the shipment of American-made and German-made Abrams tanks. Leopard 2.

For example, on January 29, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg urged South Korea to “intensify the specific issue of military support.”

Stoltenberg noted that several NATO members and allies, including Germany, Norway and Sweden, have changed their policies of not exporting arms to countries in conflict to support Ukraine.

However, Yoon Suk-Yeol finds it difficult to directly deliver weapons to Ukraine, on the one hand because South Korean law prohibits the supply of weapons to countries in conflict. On the other hand, Seoul is also a signatory to the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty, ratified in 2014 with the intention of maintaining strict control over who gets the weapons and under what conditions they can be used.

Still, Yoon’s visit is significant because few Asian leaders have visited Ukraine, Ramón Pacheco Pardo, a professor of Korea at the Brussels School of Governance research organization, told Reuters. “It remains to be seen to what extent this is a policy shift towards more support for Ukraine,” he added, “but the trip shows kyiv’s approval of the aid sent so far.”

“If he goes, it’s because Zelenskiy has allowed him, because he believes that Korea is doing enough to justify it,” Pacheco Pardo said, adding that this also suggests South Korea may be offering more behind-the-scenes support.

In 2022, according to Reuters, South Korea’s arms sales totaled more than $17 billion, up from $7.25 billion a year earlier, including a $13.7 billion arms deal with Poland – the biggest in the history of Seoul – for the supply of rocket launchers and fighter planes.

With information from EFE and Reuters