South Korea has been warned by Vladimir Putin that using hands against Russia would be” a great mistake” by it.
His comments come after Seoul said it was considering such a possibility, in response to Russia and North Korea’s new pact to help each other in the event of “aggression” against either country.
Moscow “will …]make ] decisions which are unlikely to please the current leadership of South Korea” if Seoul decides to supply arms to Kyiv, Mr Putin told reporters on Thursday.
The Russian president was speaking in Vietnam shortly after making a beautiful trip to Pyongyang, where he and Kim Jong Un, signed a shared defense agreement.
Seoul had previously said the deal was a threat to its regional stability, and Chang Ho-jin, the country’s top official, said it would “reexamine the issue of arms support to Ukraine.”
In response to Mr. Putin’s comments, the presidency of South Korea announced on Friday that it would ponder “various options” for providing arms to Ukraine, and that its position did “depend on how Russia approaches this issue.”
Authorities are also anticipated to awaken South Korea’s ambassador, according to Yonhap news agency, citing unidentified political sources.
South Korea has so far refused to supply lethal weapons to Ukraine despite providing them with humanitarian aid and military support because it has a legally binding policy against arming allies at war.
Some in Ukraine have been anticipating that Seoul’s strategy will change as a result of the growing defense ties between Moscow and Pyongyang. Prior to this, experts had predicted that Kyiv would employ Mr. Putin’s trip to Pyongyang to put more pressure on.
During the visit, Mr Kim had also pledged “full support” for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. There is growing evidence that Russia has already been deploying North Korean missiles in Ukraine.
The US National Security Council’s spokesman John Kirby spoke out early on Friday about the Russian-North Asian deal, saying it does “be of priority to any country that cares about maintaining peace and stability” in the area.
He added that the deal was” no surprise”, saying that the US had been warning about the two countries ‘ “burgeoning military relationship” for several months.
Tokyo expressed” really worried” that President Putin did no “rule out co-operation in military technology with North Korea,” according to Japan’s government spokeswoman Yoshimasa Hayashi, adding that the agreement was “unacceptable.”
According to experts, the convention has potential substantial effects for both the world and the region. It might also be possible for North Korea to boldly arm Russia, but it might also be possible for Russia to get involved in any new issue on the Korean Peninsula.
The two Koreas still physically engage in conflict and maintain a tightly guarded border, which has caused tensions to escalate in recent days.
In a split event on Thursday, North Vietnamese soldiers “briefly crossed” the frontier and retreated after the South fired warning shots, Seoul officials said on Friday.
This marks the third such incident in less than three weeks. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff had said the two earlier cases – on 9 June and 18 June – appeared to be unintentional.
More reporting by Jean Mackenzie.