South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol made a surprise visit to Ukraine on Saturday, during which he visited the town of Bucha, the site of a mass killing of civilians blamed on the Russian military, ahead of a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyi, reports said. AFP.

Yoon Suk YeolPhoto: Office of the President of South Korea / Associated Press / Profimedia Images

“The president first visited the site of the massacre in Buch, near the capital Kyiv, as well as the city of Irpin, where rocket attacks were concentrated on civilian residential areas,” the South Korean president said, adding that a meeting between the two leaders would take place later that day.

“President Yoon Suk Yeol will visit the memorial to those who died in the war to lay a wreath and will have a high-level meeting with President Zelensky,” the president’s message reads.

South Korea, the world’s ninth-largest arms exporter, has sent humanitarian aid to Ukraine and sold tanks and howitzers to Poland, Kyiv’s key ally against Russian forces.

However, this Asian country has a long-standing policy of not supplying weapons to conflict regions, despite repeated requests from the US, European allies and Ukraine itself for additional aid.

The meeting between Yun and Zelensky, who has already called on South Korea to supply arms directly to Ukraine, is expected to focus on the help offered by Seoul.

South Korea, which is technically still at war with a nuclear-armed North Korea, produces large quantities of NATO-compatible weapons, including tanks, howitzers and highly sought-after artillery munitions.

Seoul has hinted that it may reconsider its policy of refusing to provide lethal weapons, and the president’s office earlier this year indicated that a large-scale Russian attack on civilians could change the situation.

In May, South Korea denied US media reports of future deliveries of shells to Ukraine, saying that its decision not to provide lethal weapons to Kyiv remained unchanged.

However, experts note that South Korea is in a delicate position due to economic ties with Russia (its fifteenth trading partner in 2022) and Moscow’s influence over North Korea.