South Korea does not rule out supplying weapons directly to Ukraine, President Yoon Suk-yeol said, following North Korea’s deployment of troops to support Russia in its war.

Pyongyang’s involvement in the conflict presented a threat to Seoul, as the isolated state’s soldiers gain much-needed combat experience lacking in its military and are rewarded by Moscow with sensitive transfers of military technology. Yoon said at a press conference on Thursday.

South Korea, a major arms exporter, has a long-standing policy of not providing weapons to countries in conflict.

“Now, depending on the level of North Korea’s involvement, we will gradually adjust our support strategy in phases,” Yoon said.

“This means that we do not rule out the possibility of providing weapons.”

Yoon said he discussed North Korea with US President-elect Donald Trump in a phone conversation that laid the groundwork for a face-to-face meeting in the “near future.”

North Korea has become one of the most vocal and important supporters of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

South Korea and the West have long accused Pyongyang of supplying artillery shells and missiles to Moscow for use in Ukraine.

But intelligence reports from Seoul, Washington and NATO have revealed that North Korea has deployed 10,000 troops to Russia, indicating even deeper involvement in the conflict.

Yoon said his office would monitor developments related to the North Korean soldiers’ operations, and that if he decided to provide weapons to Ukraine, the initial batch would be defensive.

“If we proceed with weapons support, we would prioritize defensive weapons as a first consideration,” he said, without elaborating.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov told South Korean broadcaster KBS that the Ukrainian army had its first confrontation with North Korean soldiers.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who criticized the West’s lack of response to the arrival of North Korean soldiers to the front, said that these “first battles with North Korea open a new chapter of instability in the world.”

South Korea supplies weapons to Poland, including rocket launchers, tanks and FA-50 fighter jets.

At a defense exhibition in Seoul in October 2023, Yoon said he wants his country to become the “world’s fourth-largest exporter of defense equipment.”

Compared with his moderate predecessor Moon Jae-in, Yoon has taken a tough stance toward the nuclear-armed North while improving ties with his security ally, Washington.

Since North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s second summit with then-President Trump collapsed in Hanoi in 2019, Pyongyang has abandoned diplomacy, doubling down on weapons development and rejecting offers for talks from Washington.

While in office, Trump met with Kim three times, beginning with a historic summit in Singapore in June 2018, although the two did not make much progress on efforts to denuclearize the North.

Trump previously accused South Korea of ​​taking advantage of American military power and demanded it pay far more than the cost of keeping American troops in the country to counter North Korea’s threat of aggression.

On Monday, a day before the US election, South Korea and the United States signed a five-year plan under which Seoul agreed to an 8.3 percent increase in its contribution by 2026 to the cost of maintaining US bases in the country. up to 1.52 trillion won ($1.09). billion), with future increases limited to 5 percent.

Yoon said Thursday: “We will build a perfect security posture together with the new administration in Washington and safeguard our freedom and peace.”

On Wednesday, the Russian Federation Council, the upper house of parliament, ratified a historic mutual defense pact with North Korea. The treaty was signed in Pyongyang on June 19 during a state visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The unanimous vote in the upper house formalizes months of growing security cooperation between the two nations, the greatest since their days as communist allies during the Cold War.