South Korea has warned it will pursue legal action if investigations confirm that fuel shipments from its ports to Russia violated domestic law. The foreign and trade ministries, together with customs authorities, said they were reviewing the loading cases reported by The Guardian and would act in accordance with the law if violations were found.
Guardian analysis of port records and ship‑tracking data revealed that in July and August more than 176,000 tonnes of fuel, mainly diesel, were loaded at several South Korean ports onto seven tankers that made 14 voyages to Russia’s Far East. Three of the tankers were subject to UK and EU sanctions, and one carried about 26,000 tonnes through a ship‑to‑ship transfer off the southern port of Yeosu.
The South Korean statement clarified that the refined petroleum products involved were not subject to the country’s export controls on Russia, which mainly target industrial machinery, electronics and vehicles. It added that no diesel, aviation fuel or motor petrol had been formally exported from South Korea to Russia through customs clearance, and that the origin of the fuel could not be confirmed from publicly available port records. Authorities said they would examine the tankers’ actual routes and any divergence from declared destinations before determining whether the law had been breached.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry said it had raised the matter with Seoul through diplomatic channels and that Kyiv possessed its own data on the activity. An adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the shipments as a “sharp contrast” to South Korea’s sanctions policy, a claim the South Korean presidential office dismissed as “contrary to fact and inappropriate” and urged Ukraine to refrain from public statements that could damage the country’s international credibility.
