South Korea has increased the production and supply of its own weapons and military equipment.

The New York Times reported about this.

The country’s defense industry has focused on filling the world’s rearmament gap against the background of the large-scale military support of Ukraine by Western countries.

However, expanding the sale of weapons around the world, the South Korean authorities refused to supply lethal weapons to Ukraine.

This might be partly explained by the country’s reluctance to escalate relations with Russia due to the latter’s influence over North Korea.

According to NYT, South Korea’s arms exports rose 140% to a record $17.3 billion in 2022.

Poland has become the largest customer of South Korean weapons in 2022 – the amount of agreements exceeded $12.4 billion, the US publication writes.

The orders include the supply of tanks, rocket launchers, self-propelled howitzers and combat aircraft.

At the end of February, South Korea received a new request from the United States for the supply of 155 mm artillery shells.

The US has already purchased 100,000 rounds of 155 mm artillery ammunition to be transferred to Ukraine in November of last year. This was reported by the American media with reference to their own sources. However, the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Korea claimed at the time that the purchase of ammunition had been carried out “under the condition that the US is the end user,” and the sale was intended to replenish the ammunition stocks of the United States military.

The purchase took place under a confidential arms supply agreement between Seoul and Washington.

The Wall Street Journal article explained that routing the deal through the US allows South Korea to stick to the letter of its public commitment to not transfer lethal military support to Ukraine.