The big question is whether the ROK will provide advanced military weapons to Ukraine for free or for sale:
President Yoon Suk Yeol said Thursday that South Korea could consider providing arms to Ukraine, depending on the extent of military cooperation between Russia and North Korea, vowing not to “sit idle” in response to Pyongyang’s troop dispatch to Russia.
Yoon made the remarks after a summit with Polish President Andrzej Duda in Seoul, during which both leaders strongly condemned North Korea’s troop dispatch to Russia and agreed to strengthen joint responses to growing security threats.
What is Russia going to do, fund the North Korean regime and assist them with their missile programs? They are already doing this:
Russia’s foreign ministry warned Wednesday that South Korea could face “security consequences” if it gets involved in the war in Ukraine, as Seoul has vowed to take “phased” measures in response to growing military cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow.
Maria Zakharova, the ministry’s spokesperson, issued the warning as Seoul announced its plan Tuesday to take the measures following its spy agency’s confirmation that Pyongyang plans to dispatch around 10,000 soldiers to support Russia’s war in Ukraine, including some 1,500 troops that it has already sent.
“They should think about the security consequences if it gets involved in the Ukrainian crisis,” she said during a press briefing through an English-language interpreter. “The Russian Federation will react on those aggressive steps, if our citizens are under threats, under peril.”
S. Korea-Qatar joint military drill Lt. Col. Chang Tae-hwan (L), who leads a contingent of the South Korean Army, greets a Qatari general during a two-week joint military drill with the Qatari ground forces at the Al Qalayel training center in Qatar, in this photo provided by the Army on Oct. 21, 2024. (Yonhap)
I argue the ROK military is not seeing a rise in sexual misconduct, but instead a rise in females willing to report it:
The number of reports of sexual misconduct against female service members has surged in recent years, increasing by more than sixfold from 2020 to 2023, a lawmaker said Wednesday, citing data from the defense ministry.
The number of such reports stood at 135 in 2020 before reaching 366 in 2021, 673 in 2022, 867 in 2023 and 604 as of September this year, according to the data submitted to Rep. Hwang Hee of the main opposition Democratic Party.
Of the total 2,645 cases over the period, 1,730 were reports of sexual harassment, while 915 were those on other sexual violence, such as rape and sexual assault.
A few years ago who would have imagined that North Korean troops and their flag would be flying over a Eastern European country?:
A pro-Russia Telegram account has posted a photo showing the Russian and North Korean flags side by side on a Ukrainian battlefield, indicating that North Korea has likely sent troops to support Russia in its prolonged war with Ukraine.
The image, shared by a blogger named @rvvoenkor_bot on Monday, showed the two flags raised together over a mine in Pokrovsk, one of the strongholds on Ukraine’s eastern front.
The blogger said that the North Korean flag has recently been raised on a hill at the mine near the city, which is one of the suspected locations where North Korean soldiers are believed to be stationed.
The ROK is informing North Korean Soldiers along the DMZ that they could potentially become cannon fodder in Putin’s war in Ukraine:
The South Korean loudspeakers blaring at the Demilitarized Zone are causing pain for the residents of the nearby Unification Village, the village chief told Stars and Stripes by phone Tuesday. Since Monday, the South Korean armed forces’ “Voice of Freedom” has been broadcasting around-the-clock to North Koreans that their troops are deployed to Russia to support the invasion of Ukraine, Lee Wanbae said.
“Not only me but also my villagers have been hearing the anti-Pyongyang loudspeaker broadcasts all day long every day,” he said. “The military broadcasts it from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. … and it is very loud. So, our ears are starting to hurt.” Unification Village, in a buffer zone just outside the DMZ, is just over a mile from the no-man’s land dividing the two countries.
This would be bold of South Korea to send troops to Ukraine when even the U.S. hasn’t officially sent any American troops to Ukraine yet:
South Korea is considering sending a team of personnel to Ukraine to monitor North Korean troops being deployed to support Russia, a government source said Tuesday.
Last week, Seoul’s spy agency said North Korea sent some 1,500 special forces to Russia this month to take part in the war in Ukraine. The North is expected to dispatch a total of 12,000 troops from an elite special forces unit, according to an intelligence source.
“There is a possibility that personnel will be sent to Ukraine to monitor the tactics and combat capabilities of North Korean special forces dispatched in support of Russia,” the source said.
If deployed, the team is expected to be composed of military personnel from intelligence units, who could analyze North Korean battlefield tactics or take part in interrogations of captured North Koreans.
