South Korea pledges legal action if illegal fuel exports to Russia are confirmed

South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday it had not confirmed any South Korean fuel exports to Russia but would take legal action if illegal shipments were proved, Al Jazeera reported (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/8/south-korea-pledges-legal-action-over-alleged-fuel-exports-to-russia).

The ministry added that commercial diesel and jet-fuel exports were not on South Korea’s Russia export-control list.

The pledge answers a claim by Vladyslav Vlasiuk, Ukraine’s top sanctions official, who said on Tuesday that 176,000 tonnes of fuel were shipped from South Korea to Russia via sanctioned tankers in July and August, easing the impact of a fuel crisis caused by Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian refineries, according to Al Jazeera and Reuters (https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/south-korea-denies-ukrainian-report-that-it-eased-russias-fuel-crisis-2026-10-07/).

His remarks followed a Guardian report that port records and ship-tracking data showed fuel had been loaded at South Korean ports onto seven tankers, including vessels under British and EU sanctions, Reuters reported.

On Wednesday, the presidential office dismissed the Ukrainian report, calling the accusation “inappropriate”. Spokesperson Kang Yu-jung said South Korea had “consistently enforced sanctions and export controls against Russia in close coordination with the international community”, was examining the facts, and would act if problems were confirmed, urging Ukraine not to distort South Korea’s policies without verifying the facts, Reuters and Al Jazeera reported.

The row deepens Seoul-Kyiv tensions, already strained after South Korea accused President Zelenskyy of breaching a non-disclosure agreement by disclosing at the UN General Assembly that Kyiv had transferred two North Korean prisoners of war to the South; Kyiv denied any agreement existed, Al Jazeera reported.