Donald Trump’s election victory is prompting South Korea to rethink the possibility of sending weapons directly to Ukraine. Family members, residents of Kryvyi Rih say farewell to a woman and her three children killed by a Russian missile strike on Monday.
Trump’s election victory is prompting South Korea to rethink possibility of sending weapons to Ukraine
Donald Trump’s election victory is prompting South Korea to rethink the possibility of sending weapons directly to Ukraine, a decision that could have a big impact on the direction of the war, Bloomberg News said Thursday. The paragraphs below are quoted from the article.
President Yoon Suk Yeol’s government now has to consider the US president-elect’s stance as it looks at whether to change its long-standing policy of not sending lethal aid to Kyiv, according to an official who asked not to be identified as discussions are private and ongoing.
Seoul is also looking at how Trump’s approach to the war will affect support for Ukraine among a range of countries, another government official said.
Yoon’s office said the government will examine possible scenarios from Russia-North Korea military cooperation following Pyongyang’s deployment of troops, and implement countermeasures. “We will closely coordinate with our ally and partners in that process,” it said in a statement in response to Bloomberg questions on South Korea’s latest thinking about sending arms to Ukraine.
Exporting lethal aid to Kyiv would signal strong support for Ukraine. It might also benefit South Korean businesses if they participate in Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is preparing to send an envoy to Seoul, aiming to appeal for weapons and persuade South Korea to reconsider its stance in its favor. South Korea has vast stores of the 155 millimeter artillery shells that are the North Atlantic Treaty Organization standard used by Ukraine.
Officials in Seoul have indicated that they may consider directly supplying arms if North Korea acquires technology that enhances its ability to make weapons of mass destruction. Putin has said he can’t rule out giving Kim high-precision weapons in response to Western military assistance for Ukraine.
In a separate report last week, an unnamed Ukrainian intelligence official cited by the Financial Times reported the first military engagement between his country’s forces and North Korean troops in Russia’s Kursk region.
A couple of thousand North Korean troops are moving toward Russia’s Kursk region and a small number are already there, the Pentagon said on October 29. North Korea has sent about 10,000 troops to Russia for training, some of whom are already moving toward the front lines near the Ukrainian border, the Pentagon warned on October 28.
Ukraine not developing nuclear weapons, its foreign ministry says, responding to The Times article
Ukraine does not possess, develop, or intend to acquire nuclear weapons, spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Heorhii Tykhyi said on X, disproving claims by The Times in an article published Wednesday that “Ukraine could develop a rudimentary nuclear bomb within months if Donald Trump withdraws US military assistance, according to a briefing paper prepared for the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence”.
“Ukraine is committed to the NPT [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty]; we do not possess, develop, or intend to acquire nuclear weapons. Ukraine works closely with the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] and is fully transparent to its monitoring, which rules out the use of nuclear materials for military purposes,” Tykhyi said.
Last month, Ukraine’s Foreign Affairs Ministry refuted a report from the German tabloid BILD that claimed Kyiv was closing in on plans to build a nuclear bomb. Ukraine’s Presidential Communications Advisor Dmytro Lytvyn also dismissed BILD’s report in a statement to Interfax Ukraine, telling the outlet: “Yes, this is not the first time that Bild has spread something that has no connection to reality, but plays into the hands of Russian propaganda.”
Ukraine has two options to deter further Russian aggression: being a nuclear power — a capability it lost in 1994 when it relinquished its nuclear arsenal — or joining NATO. Speaking to reporters at the European Council summit in Brussels on October 17, President Zelenskyi said he had conveyed that argument to then-Republican nominee Donald Trump in a recent conversation. He added that the Budapest Memorandum failed to offer Ukraine effective security guarantees after it gave up its nuclear weapons. “NATO countries are not at war. People are all alive in NATO countries. And thank God. That is why we choose NATO. Not nuclear weapons,” Zelenskyi said.
The Ukrainian leader later clarified at a press conference with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte that “we are not building nuclear weapons. What I meant is that today there is no stronger security guarantee for us besides NATO membership.”
Family members, residents of Kryvyi Rih say farewell to a woman and her three children killed by Russian missile strike Monday
Family members, neighbors, and other residents of the city of Kryvyi Rih said farewell Thursday to Olena Kulyk and her three children — Kyrylo, 10, Demyd, two, and two-month-old Ulyana, killed in a Russian missile strike on Monday. The father, Maksym, was the sole survivor.
The farewell ceremony was held at a church, according to the local news web site Svoyi.
The Kulyk family was routinely contributing to charity, helping orphanages and homeless. Thirty-two-year-old Olena was on maternity leave at the time of the attack.
A Russian ballistic missile strike on Kryvyi Rih on Monday morning hit a five-story residential building, causing an entire section to collapse. The next day, rescue workers pulled the woman’s body and the bodies of her three children from under the rubble.
The father of the family likely only survived because he was in the kitchen cooking the family breakfast when the building was struck. He fell from the third story to the second one.