South Korea has signalled it could consider supplying weapons to Ukraine in response to North Korea allegedly dispatching troops to Russia.
Both North Korea and Russia denied the movements, which NATO’s secretary general said would mark a “significant escalation.”
South Korea’s statement was apparently meant to pressure Russia against bringing in North Korean troops for its war against Ukraine. South Korean officials worry that Russia may reward North Korea by giving it sophisticated weapons technologies that can boost the North’s nuclear and missile programs that target South Korea.
In an emergency National Security Council meeting, top South Korean officials condemned North Korea’s alleged dispatch of troops as “a grave security threat” to South Korea and the international community. They described North Korea as “a criminal group” that forces its youths to serve as Russian mercenaries for an unjustifiable war.
According to the statement, the officials agreed to take phased countermeasures, linking the level of their responses to progress in Russian-North Korean military cooperation.
Possible steps include diplomatic, economic, and military options, and a senior South Korean presidential official told reporters on condition of anonymity in a background briefing that South Korea could consider sending both defensive and offensive weapons to Ukraine.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, South Korea has joined US-led sanctions against Moscow and shipped humanitarian and financial support to Kyiv. But it has avoided directly supplying arms to Ukraine in line with its policy of not supplying weapons to countries actively engaged in conflicts.
South Korea’s spy agency said last week it had confirmed that North Korea sent 1,500 special operation forces to Russia this month.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said his government had intelligence that 10,000 North Korea soldiers were being prepared to join invading Russian forces.
He called on allies “not to hide” from the challenge this posed.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said later Tuesday that South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol is sending experts to Brussels soon to brief ambassadors at the 32-nation military alliance.
“That will now happen early next week, and then we will see whether North Korea is indeed, or not, supporting Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine,” Rutte said. “If that would be the case, if they would be sending troops to Ukraine, that would mark a significant escalation.”
North Korea and Russia have been sharply boosting their cooperation in the past two years. In June, they signed a major defence deal requiring both countries to use all available means to provide immediate military assistance if either is attacked.
South Korea’s spy agency said that North Korea had sent more than 13,000 containers of artillery, missiles and other conventional arms to Russia since August 2023 to replenish its dwindling weapons stockpiles.
North Korea and Russia have denied the North Korean troop deployment as well as the purported weapons transfer.
At a UN Security Council meeting Monday, Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia dismissed the South Korean assertion as well as Western allegations of Iran supplying Russia with missiles and China providing arms components. He accused the West of “circulating scaremongering with Iranian, Chinese and Korean bogeymen, each one of which is more absurd than the one before.”
At a separate UN committee meeting, a North Korean diplomat said his delegation feels no need to comment on the troop dispatch, calling it “groundless, stereotype rumours aimed at smearing the image” of the North and undermining the legitimate cooperation between two sovereign states.
US deputy ambassador to the UN Robert Wood said that if true, the North Korean troop dispatch marks “a dangerous and highly concerning development” and noted that the US was “consulting with our allies and partners on such a dramatic move.”
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