▶ A surprise visit of President Yoon with his spouse Kim to Kyiv on July,15 has fixed to a large extent the positive dynamics in bilateral relations since spring 2022. If we analyze thoroughly interests and challenges of both countries in the current time-period we can discover that they have quite a lot of commonalities.

▶ Based on current situation in-around Ukraine and latest activation of bilateral ties with Korea we could identify few main directions for further development of Ukrainian-Korean relations.

Activating bilateral relations and main drivers (elements) of this process

A surprise visit of President Yoon with his spouse Kim to Kyiv on July,15 has fixed to a large extent the positive dynamics in bilateral relations since spring 2022. If we analyze thoroughly interests and challenges of both countries in the current time-period we can discover that they have quite a lot of commonalities. The visit itself was also important from the personal networking point of view. Therefore presence of First Lady of Korea Kim Keon-hee was quite important, especially if we take into the account the role First Lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska plays in foreign contacts of Ukrainian President. Therefore establishing of good personal and emotional contacts between Ukrainian and Korean leadership – that obviously happened during this visit – laid a good basis for further progress in bilateral relations between our countries.

Moreover, we can already state that this visit has pushed forward a number of initiatives (some of which are being transformed into quite concrete agreements) related to economical, financial, technical and humanitarian assistance from Korea to Ukraine which will definitely positively influence a perception of Korea here in Kyiv. Of course special attention is paid to quite a sensible area of cooperation in military and defense sectors. Ukraine is extremely interested in effective cooperation in these domains right now and for the foreseeable future, whereas Korea demonstrates impressing level of own development there, especially in enlarging own defense industrial cooperation with Central-Eastern European countries. It should be noted that cooperation in such sectors can start usually, if both parties have quite a good level of trust to each other, good track record and respectful bilateral relations.

Another area of special interest from Ukraine, which has been discussed between two Presidents during this visit, is possibilities of Korea to help Ukraine in effectively reaching out to countries of Global South, while aiming to receive support at different international platforms in countering Russian aggression against Ukraine and its respective disinformation campaigns. Due to importance of this “diplomatic frontline” for Ukraine Korea is deemed as important country in this regard. For Korea as well it could be an important direction of own activities, thus increasing own weight in Global South and strengthening respective connections there.

In general Korea is fixed now as one of priority partners of Ukraine in Asia-Pacific region, there is a number of perspective avenues for developing bilateral cooperation already in the nearest future. Moreover, Korea itself during latest years demonstrates increasing activity and more active policy with regard to Europe, well positioning itself as an important partner for key European countries in Asia-Pacific. And as far as Ukraine is going to play quite an important role in any kind of future European security architecture and economic model as well, the development of productive Ukrainian-Korean relations meets interests of both sides.

It should be also noted that previous bilateral relations were always friendly, but they lacked some flagship projects and high level of political basis, especially in establishing regular institutional cooperation. In this vein policy of newly elected in 2022 President of Korea Mr.Yoon towards Ukraine played a positive role. While describing activation of these bilateral contacts we should mention two important contacts in spring this year between the parties before his visit to Kyiv – actually one meeting followed another. The first one was visit of First Lady Zelenska to Korea on May,16 (where she met with President of Korea Mr.Yoon and his wife Ms.Kim) and the second was G-7 summit in Hiroshima on May,19-21, where both Presidents met each other. We can state that actually First Lady of Ukraine played an important role in establishing personal contact between two presidents, as well as the fact that she comes to such foreign missions only in special cases – that underscores the importance Ukraine pays to development of good relations with Korea now. Other element to be mentioned in this regard is a special track of contacts between First Ladies globally, which Ms.Zelenska has been developing for last years – and involvement of Ms.Kim to this initiative could be mutually profitable. Summarizing we can note that all mentioned steps established good pre-requisites for further break-through in bilateral relations.

How the visit changed expectations regarding Korea in Ukraine ?

The visit of Korea’s President Yoon took place in the context of very important ongoing Ukrainian offensive and intensive diplomatic efforts to frame a just solution to the war, forming solid global coalition of Ukrainian partners. It actually paved the way for intensification of relations with special emphasis on developing cooperation in political, security and economic domains. In general Ukrainian side has a positive impression from the visit and number of serious expectations emerged in this regard. First of all there exists a special expectation in Ukraine on military exports from Korea to Europe (mainly substituting soviet armaments in CEE countries depots, which are respectively then are delivered to Ukraine) which is quite a favorable development for Ukraine, because it needs a lot of military equipment and munitions now. There is also an expectation in Kyiv that Korea could play an important role in post-war reconstruction of Ukraine. This relates to possible knowledge sharing, applying and developing modern technologies during recovery phase, mutual industrial projects, recovery of numerous infrastructure sites. And a special avenue for post-war activities could be concentrated in cultural-humanitarian domain. All of the mentioned elements have been discussed during the visit in July, some of which quite in details.

Possible options for bilateral relations in future

Based on current situation in-around Ukraine and latest activation of bilateral ties with Korea we could identify few main directions for further development of Ukrainian-Korean relations. First of all security area (including military, defense and intelligence) and economic field should be mentioned as priority domains for such cooperation. Current war of Russia against Ukraine with negative implications for European security and rising tensions in Asia-Pacific provide ground for intensive cooperation between respective authorities of both countries related to ways of stabilizing situation in own regions. Economic cooperation (especially in the context of upcoming post-war recovery in Ukraine) could represent a solid basis for the security element, which definitely requires high level of political contacts. The second area could be joint efforts dedicated to global food and energy security – both countries play important roles in this domain and can increase own effectiveness via bilateral cooperation and coordinating mutual efforts in multilateral formats.

There are number of areas where mutually beneficial projects can be started in a very nearest future. Cooperation in civil nuclear technologies and industry represents the first area in this regard – where both sides could share quite a lot of competencies and experience. Production of vehicles and vessels (starting from import to Ukraine and then increasing level of localization during production cycle) can be deemed as second direction for such projects with positive effects already in short-term period. Improvement of transport infrastructure in Ukraine definitely also refers to the list of areas with possible quick wins for both sides. Modern agriculture and increasing both quality and quantity of agricultural products is an area for mutual benefits as well, especially with regard to joint projects at global markets. And last, but not the least is military industry and respective technologies where there is a huge potential for growth of different bilateral projects, especially taking into account political developments in Europe and Asia-Pacific. 

A separate avenue for the development of bilateral relation is policy coordination globally and sharing experience via bilateral channels regarding options of deterring hegemonic power(s) in own region. Both countries unfortunately have such challenges and need effective instruments to tackle such challenge. Moreover, one of such destructive powers, namely Russia is a problem to both parties. In this regard sharing experience and discussing options of future RF development (which could be quite ambiguous and dramatic with respective negative spill-overs for neighbours in a very nearest future) could be an added value to productive political dialogue between Ukraine and Korea.