World
South Korea says ‘not ruling out’ supplying weapons to Ukraine
South Korea is not ruling out providing weapons directly to Ukraine, President Yoon Suk-yeol has said, following North Korea’s deployment of troops to support Russia in its war.
Pyongyang’s involvement in the conflict presented a threat to Seoul, as the reclusive state’s soldiers get much-needed combat experience, which its military lacks, and additionally gets rewarded by Moscow with sensitive military technology transfers, Yoon told a news conference on Thursday.
South Korea, a major arms exporter, has a longstanding policy of not providing weapons to countries in conflict.
“Now, depending on the level of North Korean involvement, we will gradually adjust our support strategy in phases,” Yoon said.
“This means we are not ruling out the possibility of providing weapons.”
Yoon said he discussed North Korea with United States president-elect Donald Trump in a phone conversation that laid the groundwork for a face-to-face meeting in the “near future”.
North Korea has become one of the most vocal and important backers of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
South Korea and the West have long accused Pyongyang of supplying artillery shells and missiles to Moscow for use in Ukraine.
But intelligence reports from Seoul, Washington and NATO have revealed that North Korea has deployed 10,000 troops to Russia, indicating an even deeper involvement in the conflict.
Yoon said his office would monitor the unfolding developments related to the operations of North Korean soldiers, and if he decided to provide weapons to Ukraine, the initial batch would be defensive.
“If we proceed with weapons support, we would prioritise defensive weapons as a first consideration,” he said, without elaborating.
Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov told South Korean broadcaster KBS that the Ukrainian military had its first confrontation with North Korean soldiers.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has criticised the West’s lack of response to the arrival of the North Korean soldiers on the front lines, said these “first battles with North Korea open a new chapter of instability in the world”.
South Korea supplies weapons to Poland, including rocket launchers, tanks and FA-50 fighter aircraft.
In a defence exhibition in Seoul in October 2023, Yoon said that he wants his country to become the “world’s fourth-largest defence equipment exporter”.
Compared with his dovish predecessor Moon Jae-in, Yoon has taken a tough stance with the nuclear-armed North while improving ties with security ally Washington.
Since North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s second summit with then-president Trump collapsed in Hanoi in 2019, Pyongyang has abandoned diplomacy, doubling down on weapons development and rejecting Washington’s offers of talks.
While in office, Trump met with Kim three times, beginning with a landmark summit in Singapore in June 2018, though the pair failed to make much progress on efforts to denuclearise the North.
Trump has previously accused South Korea of getting a “free ride” on US military power and demanded it pay far more of the cost of keeping US troops in the country to counter the threat of aggression by North Korea.
On Monday, a day before the US election, South Korea and the US signed a five-year plan under which Seoul agreed to an 8.3 percent jump in its 2026 contribution to the cost of maintaining US bases in the country to 1.52 trillion won ($1.09bn), with future increases capped at 5 percent.
Yoon on Thursday said: “We will be building a perfect security posture together with the new administration in Washington and safeguard our freedom and peace.”
On Wednesday, the Federation Council of Russia, the upper house of parliament, ratified a landmark mutual defence pact with North Korea. The treaty was signed in Pyongyang on June 19 during a state visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The unanimous vote in the upper house formalises months of increasing security cooperation between the two nations, the largest since the time they were communist allies during the Cold War.
United States President Donald Trump has pledged there will be no tolls for passage through the Strait of Hormuz, unless they are collected by his own country.
Trump’s statement, made in a Saturday afternoon post on Truth Social, is the latest sign that a recently signed memorandum of understanding (MOU) may be unravelling.
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“There will be NO TOLLS in the Hormuz Strait for 60 days during the Cease Fire Period, and there will be NO TOLLS after the 60 day period has expired,” Trump wrote, “unless they are imposed by and for the United States of America.”
Since the US and Israel launched a war against Iran on February 28, Iran has successfully used the Strait of Hormuz as a pressure point, closing the strategic waterway to traffic.
But under the terms of Wednesday’s ceasefire memorandum, the strait is supposed to reopen for an interim period of 60 days. During that time, Iran is barred from charging vessels for passage.
On Saturday, however, Iran’s joint military command said it had closed the Strait of Hormuz, citing a “clear breach” of the memorandum’s commitments.
US Central Command (CENTCOM), the agency that oversees military operations in the region, denied that report and maintained that the traffic continues to flow through the waterway.
The Strait of Hormuz has long been a flashpoint in the conflict between the US and Iran. Nearly 20 percent of the world’s oil and natural gas is transported through the strait, as well as about 30 percent of the global fertiliser trade.
Closure of the strait has caused global fuel costs to soar and has tested agricultural sectors across the world.
Trump had responded to Iran’s chokehold over the strait by imposing a US naval blockade on Iran’s ports in the region.
But that naval blockade was lifted under the terms of Wednesday’s memorandum. The deal also paused fighting on all fronts in the regional conflict, including in Lebanon.
The memorandum, though, was not intended as a long-term deal. It serves as a launching point for negotiations on key issues, including the future of Iran’s nuclear programme.
Several points of divergence also went unaddressed in the memorandum. Nowhere does the memo say that future tolls cannot be collected from the strait after the 60-day period expires.
Before the war, there was no charge for passage through the strait. Trump himself said in an interview with The New York Times that the waterway should remain “permanently toll-free”.
But he appeared to reverse course in Saturday’s post, once again floating the possibility that the US could extract tolls in the strait, while barring Iran from doing so.
No fees should be levied, Trump wrote, “unless they are imposed by and for the United States of America, should the deal not be completed”.
He explained that such a charge would compensate the US “for services rendered as the Guardian Angel to the countries of the Middle East for purposes of both past, present, and future reimbursement of costs”.
Trump used similar language in his New York Times interview earlier this week, floating the US becoming “the guardian of the Middle East” in exchange for 20 percent of its revenue.
Saturday’s post is not the first time Trump has mused about the US imposing tolls in the strait, either.
In April, for instance, he discussed the idea with reporters, saying, “What about us charging tolls? I’d rather do that than let them have them. Why shouldn’t we? We’re the winner. We won.”
There has been no indication that Trump’s plans have been officially presented to countries in the region, many of whom have struck a careful balance in their dealings with both the US and Iran during the war.
Iranian officials, meanwhile, have repeatedly said they will not rule out imposing tolls in the strait, framing the issue as a matter of sovereignty and regional negotiation. The strait sits between Iran and Oman.
Further discussions are expected on the matter in the coming weeks.
But such negotiations have been thrown into jeopardy amid ongoing Israeli military operations in Lebanon, which threaten to violate Wednesday’s ceasefire memorandum.
Iran claimed that Saturday’s closure of the strait was a result of new Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon, which killed dozens of people after the ceasefire was announced.
Iranian officials have also said that any upcoming talks should focus on proper implementation of the initial memorandum, and that the 60-day negotiating period stipulated in Wednesday’s deal would begin after that was settled.
Pakistan, a top mediator between the US and Iran, has said that follow-up talks are set to begin in Switzerland on Sunday.
Switzerland’s Federal Department of Foreign Affairs has confirmed that an Iranian delegation, led by parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, has already arrived for the negotiations.
On the US side, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, special envoy Steve Witkoff and Vice President JD Vance are expected to attend.
Vance departed for Switzerland late Saturday.
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June 19, 2026
World
Man charged with attempted murder, released after allegedly forcing toddler into crocodile enclosure at zoo
Man FORCES child into crocodile enclosure
A British man has been arrested after allegedly forcing a 3-year-old boy into a crocodile enclosure at a zoo. The child suffered critical injuries, and authorities say the suspect did not know the boy as the investigation continues.
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A man was released from custody on Friday after he was charged with attempted murder for allegedly forcing a 3-year-old boy into a crocodile enclosure at a zoo.
Cambridgeshire police said that the man, who remains unidentified, wasn’t fit to be interviewed.
The boy suffered critical injuries in the incident at Johnsons of Old Hurst, a farm and zoo in Huntingdon, England, north of London.
The 30-year-old man will remain on bail until Sept. 30, pending further inquiries.
GEORGIA MOM’S WALMART TRIP DEVOLVES INTO ‘TUG-OF-WARRING’ IN DESPERATE ATTEMPT TO SAVE HER SON
A crocodile rests inside an enclosure at Johnsons of Old Hurst, a farm and zoo in Old Hurst, Cambridgeshire, Britain, on April 14, 2026. (Dorota Dee Trajdos/Reuters)
“The man, who is not known to the victim, was assessed as not being fit for interview,” police said in a statement.
The boy is in stable condition, after reportedly suffering a broken arm and pelvis.
He was saved from the crocodile by Tracey Johnson, the wife of the zoo’s owner.
MOTHER JUMPS INTO WATER TO SAVE 4-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER WHO FELL BETWEEN CRUISE SHIP AND DOCK
“I know Tracey very well and she’s a lovely lady and it’s nothing more than I’d expect from her,” a local told BBC News. “She’d always put her own life at risk to save someone else. She’s an extraordinary lady and very brave.
The villager added that Johnson put herself in “immense danger” during the rescue.
The owners said their tropical house would remain closed until further notice.
Crocodiles rest inside an enclosure at Johnsons of Old Hurst farm and zoo in Old Hurst, Cambridgeshire, Britain, on April 14, 2026. (Dorota Dee Trajdos/Reuters)
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the boy and his family following the incident that occurred today,” the owners wrote on social media.
Johnsons of Old Hurst is a farm and zoo north of London in Huntingdon, England. (Google Maps)
Huntingdonshire district councillor Charlotte Lowe said she couldn’t “fathom how it’s happened because they’ve got all the right protection and safety equipment, for want of a better word, in there,” The Guardian reported.
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Fox News Digital has reached out to the Cambridgeshire Constabulary for comment.
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