Russian President Vladimir Putin Thursday warned South Korea that sending lethal weapons to Ukraine would be a “big mistake.”
His comments come after Seoul announced it would consider arming Ukraine in response to Russia and North Korea signing a mutual defense pact on Wednesday.
“If South Korea supplies weapons to Ukraine, it will not like the answer. I hope they won’t do it, it would be a big mistake,” Putin said at a press conference in Vietnam, where he is conducting a two-day state visit aimed at deepening strategic cooperation.
Earlier this week, Putin used his first trip to North Korea in more than two decades to shore up relations with Pyongyang, which has pledged its support for the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.
While Putin claimed the two pariah states’ defense treaty was “defensive in nature,” Seoul lashed out at the agreement, with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol calling it “absurd.”
South Korea has so far only supplied non-lethal aid to Kyiv. Bound by its Foreign Trade Act, the country cannot export weapons except for “peaceful purposes.”
If Seoul supplies Kyiv directly with weapons, it would be a radical shift in the country’s longstanding policy to only export arms to countries in peacetime — though its munitions have ended up in Ukraine via third countries, such as the U.S.
Leave a Reply