Will furious South Korean leaders send arms to Ukraine?

Furious political leaders in South Korea have threatened to send weapons to Ukraine in response to Vladimir Putin's latest manoeuvres. They hit out after the Russian leader signed a defence pact with North Korean despot Kim Jong-un during a two-day visit to the pariah state.

Military analysts fear the move is the first step towards troops from Pyongyang flooding into Ukraine to ramp up Putin's bloody campaign. The text of the deal states that each country would provide immediate military help if the other one was invaded.

South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol's office said: 'It's absurd that two parties with a history of launching wars of invasion – the Korean War and the war in Ukraine – are now vowing mutual military cooperation on the premise of a pre-emptive attack by the international community that will never happen.' Mr Yoon's national security adviser Chang Ho-jin said Seoul was 'planning to reconsider the issue of providing weapons support to Ukraine'.

He added: 'Any cooperation that directly or indirectly helps strengthen North Korea 's military capabilities is a violation of the UN Security Council resolutions. Russia's own violation of the resolution and support for North Korea will inevitably have a negative impact on the South Korea-Russia relationship.'

 South Korea, which is aiming to become one of the world's top arms exporters, has signed huge deals with European countries.

But it has a long-standing policy that bars it from selling weapons into active conflict zones, which it has stuck to until now despite calls from Washington and Kyiv to reconsider. It came as Putin was treated to a fresh round of red-carpet treatment yesterday in Communist-led Vietnam.

Soldiers formed a guard of honour at Hanoi airport as the presidential plane arrived. Putin was greeted by the country's deputy prime minister before being ushered towards a limousine.

The US, which is among the country's top trading partners, accused Vietnam of normalising Russia's 'blatant violations of international law'.

Last year, US President Joe Biden made a state visit to Vietnam and received a similar welcome. Critics have branded the Hanoi regime's strategy of maintaining relations with all sides 'bamboo diplomacy' – a reference to having strong roots but flexible branches.

Hanoi's diplomatic approach dates back to the Cold War, when it decided to be a friend to all countries. Nguyen Khac Giant, of the Iseas-Yusof Ishak Institute – a Singapore-based research centre – said: 'Vietnam has played this game quite well. It has been actively neutral [in US-Russia disputes]. Hanoi knows it must balance different powers, to gain benefits from them.'

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