Sending monitoring team to Ukraine necessary for national interest: defense chief

Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun on Monday said sending a team of observers to Ukraine is essential for national interest, emphasizing that such a team would be different from deploying troops to Kyiv.

Kim made the remark in a parliamentary defense committee session as the government mulls sending a monitoring team to Ukraine that could possibly take part in analyzing North Korean combat tactics and interrogations of captured troops.

“A monitoring team is different from the deployment of troops,” Kim said. “The team is not a military unit that operates under a command system and is deployed unarmed. It will consist of a small number of professionals who make a short-term visit.”

Kim stressed that the deployment of such a monitoring team would be based on Seoul’s needs rather than upon the request of the United Nations or the country in war, in a reference to Ukraine.

In a meeting with reporters in Washington, D.C., last month, Kim ruled out the possibility of sending troops to Kyiv and said that dispatching a team of observers would be essential as they would be bringing back useful information to help guard the nation.

Last week, a South Korean government delegation, consisting of senior intelligence and military officials, returned home after visiting Ukraine and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Brussels to discuss the North’s troop deployment to Russia.