AP – South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol made a surprise visit to Ukraine yesterday, offering support for the country while demonstrating his own nation’s cooperation with NATO.
Yoon’s office said he travelled to Ukraine with his wife, Kim Keon Hee, following trips to Lithuania for a NATO summit and to Poland.
It’s his first visit since the war in Ukraine began almost 17 months ago.
Yoon toured Bucha and Irpin, a pair of small cities near Kyiv. He laid flowers at a monument to the country’s war dead.
The South Korean leader held talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy later in the day, Yoon’s senior adviser for press affairs, Kim Eun-hye, said in a statement.
Earlier this month, Yoon said in written responses to questions from The Associated Press that supplies of de-mining equipment, ambulances and other non-military materials “are in the works” following a request from Ukraine.
He said South Korea already provided support to replace the Kakhovka Dam, which was destroyed last month. “The government of the Republic of Korea is firmly committed to actively joining the United States (US) and other liberal democracies in efforts to defend the freedom of Ukraine,” Yoon said in written responses to the AP.
During a January visit to South Korea, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called for the country to provide direct military support to Ukraine, saying Kyiv was in urgent need of weapons to fight off the prolonged invasion.
South Korea is not a NATO member, but like Japan, Pakistan and a handful of other countries it is considered a global partner of the military alliance. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida visited Ukraine in March.
In May, when Yoon met Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska in Seoul, the president said he would expand South Korea’s non-lethal aid to Ukraine. Yoon’s spokesperson, Lee Do Woon, said at the time that Zelenska made no request for South Korean weapons supplies during her conversation with Yoon.
An American official said in November that the US had agreed to buy 100,000 artillery rounds from South Korean manufacturers to provide to Ukraine, although South Korean officials have maintained that the munitions were meant to refill depleted US stocks.
Yoon and Zelenskyy met in May on the sidelines of a Group of Seven industrialised nations summit in Hiroshima, Japan.
Zelensky thanked South Korea for its humanitarian shipments of medicines, computers and generators and requested additional provisions of non-lethal items, Yoon’s office said at the time.
The two leaders also agreed to work to assist South Korean companies taking part in post-war reconstruction projects in Ukraine, according to Yoon’s office.
“Yoon’s visit to Ukraine reflects his globally-minded foreign policy and shows South Korean solidarity with NATO partners in defending the rules-based international order,” professor Leif-Eric Easley at Ewha University in Seoul said.
“Seoul’s support of Ukraine includes not only humanitarian assistance, but also arms sales to backfill NATO countries providing military aid to Kyiv, and plans for post-conflict reconstruction of infrastructure.”
