This is a first for South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol. This Saturday, July 15, he made landfall in Ukraine and should meet with Volodymyr Zelensky at the end of the day. So far, South Korea has refused to supply arms to Ukraine, prioritizing humanitarian and financial aid.
An alleged Russian intelligence agent, extradited from Estonia to the United States and accused in particular of smuggling, was placed in pre-trial detention on Friday on American soil, at a time when Washington calls for an exchange of prisoners with Moscow.
South Korean president’s surprise visit
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol paid a surprise visit to Ukraine on Saturday, during which he visited the town of Boutcha, the scene of a massacre of civilians blamed on the Russian army, before a meeting with his counterpart Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelensky, said the presidency. “The president first visited the site of the Boutcha massacre, near the capital Kiev, as well as the town of Irpin, where the missile attacks were concentrated on civilian residential areas,” said the southern presidency. Korea, specifying that the meeting between the two leaders would take place later in the day.
Yoon Seok-youl participated this week in a NATO summit in Lithuania, where the Ukrainian president was also present. Visiting Poland a few days later, he expressed his solidarity with Ukraine in the face of the Russian invasion. South Korea, however, has so far refused to supply arms to Ukraine, prioritizing humanitarian and financial aid.
494 dead Ukrainian children dead since the beginning of the war
According to a count released this Saturday by the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine on Telegram, 494 children have been killed and 1,552 injured since the beginning of the war. These figures are continuously rising due to census work in combat zones.
According to the document, the administrative regions that recorded the highest number of injured children are: Donetsk oblast (472), Kharkiv oblast (297), Kiev oblast (129), Kherson (116), Zaporizhia Oblast (97), Mykolaiv Oblast (89), Dnipropetrovsk Oblast (83), Chernihiv Oblast (71) and Luhansk Oblast (67) .
Suspected Russian spy extradited to US
The man’s name is Vadim Konoshchenok. He is accused by American justice of having played a central role in a group that illegally supplied Russia with sensitive electronic components and ammunition using shell companies. And more specifically to have “provided advanced American technologies and ammunition to Russia, intended for its illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, detailed Andrew Adams, the director of the KleptoCapture team, which depends on the ministry. of Justice.
Vadim Konoshchenok was arrested in 2022 by Estonian authorities at the request of the United States after attempting to cross the Estonian-Russian border in possession of American semiconductors and ammunition, according to the indictment. According to US authorities, more than 450 kilos of ammunition were seized in connection with this case. The extradition of Vadim Konoshchenok to the United States comes at a time when Washington is seeking to negotiate the release of several American citizens detained in Russia, including Paul Whelan, a former non-commissioned officer in the Marine Corps, and journalist Evan Gershkovich, both accused of ‘spying. Washington rejects these charges and is working to negotiate their release. “I’m serious about a prisoner swap,” Joe Biden said Thursday from Finland.