Tag: Ukraine

Hopefully Keun Rhee isn’t too seriously injured and is able to recover:

A South Korean volunteer fighter in Ukraine was injured during a reconnaissance mission, his YouTube channel said Sunday.

Rhee Keun “recently incurred injuries while leading a special reconnaissance mission behind enemy lines. He has been transferred to a military hospital,” according to an English-language update posted on the YouTube channel ROKSEAL.

The YouTube channel did not provide any further details on Rhee’s condition.

The Navy SEAL-turned-YouTuber left for Ukraine in March to join the war against Russia in violation of a South Korean government ban.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The claims against Ken Rhee makes me wonder if this is a Russian disinformation campaign targeting him? With that said he is a YouTuber so of course he is going to have people filming him:

Rhee Ken, a Korean YouTuber and former Korean Navy special warfare officer who went to Ukraine in March to fight Russia, denied allegations that a cameraman follows him around while he is on the battlefield and said that his team will take legal action against the person who is spreading this false information.  

A staff member working behind the scenes of Rhee’s YouTube channel “Rokseal” on Monday denied the claims about Rhee being accompanied by a cameraman in Ukraine by posting a photo of Rhee on the battlefield and writing, “This person claims that the man who departed with Lee [to Ukraine] is a cameraman, but he is actually a former sergeant major of the Marine Corps. He was given a clear mission which was to obtain evidence of war crimes requested by the International Criminal Court (ICC). But the situation became too dangerous, and with Rhee’s call, the former sergeant major did not partake in the mission.”  

Rhee’s YouTube channel staff member also added that Rhee has been fighting in Ukraine since the beginning of the war and that Rhee is “on duty as the commander of the International Corps’ most important team.”  

He gave additional reasons for Rhee’s participation in the war such as “granting special warfare technology and know-how in advanced countries, granting operational strategies as field commanders, and securing evidence for war crimes to be submitted to the ICC.” 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

This was likely quite a site for the personnel at Yokota Airbase outside of Tokyo to see:

The world’s largest production transport airplane, painted in Ukrainian blue and yellow, touched down at the home of U.S. Forces Japan in western Tokyo early Wednesday.

The chartered AN-124 Antonov, also called a Ruslan, carried oversized equipment for a new heat and power plant at Yokota from Dallas, according to an email April 7 from 374th Airlift Wing spokesman 1st Lt. Danny Rangel. The statement was embargoed until the plane touched down.

The Antonov dwarfed Air Force C-130J Super Hercules cargo planes and CV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft as it taxied onto a ramp beside Yokota’s cargo terminal. It was the same spot where airmen on March 16 loaded a 38-ton shipment of Ukraine-bound nonlethal military supplies onto a C-17 Globemaster III.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

It appears South Korea is trying to pull a balancing act in regards to the current situation in Ukraine by only giving non-lethal aid to not upset the Russians too much, but still appear they are doing something to the rest of the global community:

South Korea’s Defense Minister Suh Wook has reiterated Seoul’s stance against the provision of any lethal arms to Ukraine during last week’s phone talks with his Ukrainian counterpart, his office said Monday.

Suh repeated the position in response to Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov’s request for anti-aircraft weapons in their phone call on Friday.

“Suh had explained that there are limits in providing lethal weapon systems to Ukraine, given our security situation and its potential impact on our military’s readiness posture,” Boo Seung-chan, the spokesperson for the defense ministry, told a regular press briefing.

South Korea has provided Ukraine with non-lethal military supplies worth 1 billion won (US$804,100), such as bulletproof helmets and blankets, as well as medical items in March.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

A Chinese academic Hu Wei is the vice-chairman of the Public Policy Research Center of the Counselor’s Office of the State Council has written an article that has been translated into English that provides some good analysis on how China should react to the current crisis in Ukraine. Ultimately He advocates for China breaking from Putin:

China should achieve the greatest possible strategic breakthrough and not be further isolated by the West. Cutting off from Putin and giving up neutrality will help build China’s international image and ease its relations with the U.S. and the West. Though difficult and requiring great wisdom, it is the best option for the future. The view that a geopolitical tussle in Europe triggered by the war in Ukraine will significantly delay the U.S. strategic shift from Europe to the Indo-Pacific region cannot be treated with excessive optimism. There are already voices in the U.S. that Europe is important, but China is more so, and the primary goal of the U.S. is to contain China from becoming the dominant power in the Indo-Pacific region. Under such circumstances, China’s top priority is to make appropriate strategic adjustments accordingly, to change the hostile American attitudes towards China, and to save itself from isolation. The bottom line is to prevent the U.S. and the West from imposing joint sanctions on China.

US-China Perception Monitor

I highly recommend reading the whole article at the link.

Rhee Keun is still alive in Ukraine and it will be interesting to learn at some point what the Ukraine military has him tasked to do:

 A former Korean Navy special warfare officer who recently left for Ukraine to join the war against Russia as a volunteer soldier posted news of his survival on social media Tuesday.

“I’m alive,” Rhee Keun wrote on his Instagram account in an apparent denial of recent rumors about his death after Russia claimed to have killed about 180 foreign volunteer fighters in an attack on a training base in western Ukraine.

“My teammates withdrew safely from Ukraine, and I’m alone in the country,” he said. “I have a lot of things to do. I’m busy combating every day. There will be no news from me until I complete my mission,” he added.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

North Korea has commented for the first time about the Russian invasion of Ukraine and it is about what you would expect, Russia has done nothing wrong and it is all the U.S.’s fault:

North Korea spoke on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for the first time three days after the first attack. North Korea defended Russia and criticized the United States. However, Pyongyang did not specifically mention the details of Russia’s invasion and did not voice its views in an official statement released by the government, but instead released a comment by a researcher at the Society for International Politics Studies, implying the North’s complicated calculations behind the latest incident.

On February 26, the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs released on its website a post arguing that the U.S. should not tear down the foundation of international peace and stability in the name of Ri Ji-song, a researcher at the Society for International Politics Studies. Ri wrote that in every region and country that the U.S. intervened in, seeds of discord were being sowed and relationships between nations were deteriorating. He argued that this trend was being established like a principle and that this was the current international order. He further criticized, “The root cause of the Ukrainian crisis also lies in the high-handedness and arbitrariness of the U.S. which has held on solely to the unilateral sanction and pressure while pursuing only global hegemony and military supremacy in disregard of the legitimate demand of Russia for its security.” Ri cited comments by global media and experts and claimed it was no coincidence that they found the fundamental reason for the Ukrainian crisis in the “imbalance of power in Europe due to the unilateral expansion of NATO and its threat as well as the grave threat to the national security of Russia.”

Kyunghyang Shinmun

You can read more at the link, but notably no where in the statement does North Korea actually mention that Ukraine was invaded by Russia.

Showing the colors of the Ukrainian flag is now the international version of virtue signaling:

 Iconic landmarks across Seoul were lit up in the colors of the Ukrainian flag Sunday in support of the Eastern European nation under siege amid the Russian assault.

N Seoul Tower on Mount Namsan, Seoul City Hall, Sebitseom on the Han River and Seoullo Media Canvas glowed blue and yellow Sunday evening.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.