South Korea has secretly provided Ukraine with hundreds of thousands of artillery shells, although Seoul does not publicly recognize this

South Korea has begun transferring hundreds of thousands of artillery shells to Ukraine at the request of the United States. According to US officials, this step will make Kyiv's planned counteroffensive against Russian troops more effective.

Source. This was reported by the Wall Street Journal.

According to a confidential agreement, South Korea transfers the missiles to the United States. The United States then organizes the shipment to Ukraine. The White House and Seoul declined to comment.

The newspaper writes that South Korea's contribution allowed the Biden administration to postpone the decision to send "advanced conventional dual-use munitions," or cluster munitions, to Ukraine for now.

"Cluster munitions will be the missing piece for the Ukrainian counteroffensive to complement their precision medium-range missiles, tanks and troops," said Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, an independent Washington-based think tank.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the breakthrough in the supply of munitions from South Korea came shortly after Washington and Seoul issued a joint declaration on security issues during South Korean President Yun Suk-yol's visit to Washington last month.

The declaration assured Seoul of a possible U.S. nuclear response to a North Korean attack in exchange for a promise to abandon the development of its own nuclear weapons.

During the visit, Yun said the international community must confront Russian aggression in Ukraine and hinted that his government is considering providing assistance.

"We are closely monitoring the situation on the battlefield in Ukraine and will take appropriate measures to uphold international norms and international law," he said in a speech at Harvard Kennedy School.

Meanwhile, South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Jeong Ha-kyu commented on the Wall Street Journal's publication on Thursday.

Negotiations between Seoul and Washington on the issue of providing Ukraine with missiles were indeed held, but "the South Korean government's position on helping Ukraine remains unchanged," he said.

South Korea supplies military equipment (helmets, body armor) to Ukraine, but refrains from transferring lethal weapons, he said.

Jeong Ha-kyu did not directly refute the WSJ article, but said it contained "some inaccuracies."

"There have been various discussions and requests, and our government will take appropriate measures while comprehensively considering the military and humanitarian situation in Ukraine," Jeong said at a briefing on Thursday.

South Korea is a major producer of artillery ammunition and a longtime US ally in the Asian region.

However, close economic ties with Russia and Moscow's influence on the DPRK, South Korea's main geopolitical adversary, have led Seoul to refuse to supply weapons for a long time.