South Korea joins US, bans strategic materials export to Russia

ANKARA

South Korea on Monday joined the US and its allies in announcing sanctions against Russia over attacks on Ukraine, local media said.

Announcing the decision, the Foreign Ministry said that Seoul has banned the export of strategic materials to Russia and removed Moscow from the SWIFT payment system, Yonhap News Agency reported.

Russia's envoy in South Korea warned the move could change relations between the two countries.

"The decision is deeply regrettable, Russia-South Korea relations have developed only in a positive way in the past 30 years. The upward trajectory, I think, will now change course," the agency quoted Russia's Ambassador to South Korea Andrey Kulik as saying.

The envoy said the move will also impact the trilateral cooperative projects.

"Cooperative projects among South and North Korea, and Russia are indeed closely related to resolving the nuclear issue, inter-Korean relations, peace on the Korean Peninsula, security and prosperity," he said.

"With that in mind, it makes me doubt if South Korea really needs all that," he added.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation” in Ukraine last Thursday, days after recognizing two separatist-held enclaves in eastern Ukraine. He claimed that Moscow had no plan to occupy its neighbor but wanted to “demilitarize” and “denazify” Ukraine.

In response, Western powers have imposed financial sanctions on Moscow, and the EU has decided to fund arms supplies to Ukraine, close its airspace to Russian airlines and ban Russian state media.

At least 368,000 Ukrainians have fled the country since the beginning of the war, according to the UN Refugee Agency.