South Ko­rea’s pres­i­dent said the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty “will unite more tight­ly” to cope with deep­en­ing mil­i­tary co­op­er­a­tion be­tween Rus­sia and North Ko­rea, as he plans to raise the is­sue with world lead­ers at the U.N. Gen­er­al As­sem­bly this week.

Wor­ries about Russ­ian-North Ko­re­an ties have flared since North Ko­re­an leader Kim Jong Un trav­eled to Rus­sia last week for a sum­mit with Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin and to tour a slew of high-pro­file mil­i­tary and tech­nol­o­gy sites. For­eign ex­perts spec­u­late Kim could re­fill Rus­sia’s am­mu­ni­tion in­ven­to­ry drained in its 18-month war with Ukraine in re­turn for eco­nom­ic aid and tech­nolo­gies to mod­ern­ize his weapons sys­tems tar­get­ing South Ko­rea and the U.S.

“Mil­i­tary co­op­er­a­tion be­tween North Ko­rea and Rus­sia is il­le­gal and un­just as it con­tra­venes U.N. Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil res­o­lu­tions and var­i­ous oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al sanc­tions,” South Ko­re­an Pres­i­dent Yoon Suk Yeol said in writ­ten re­spons­es to ques­tions from The As­so­ci­at­ed Press be­fore his de­par­ture to New York to at­tend the U.N. Gen­er­al As­sem­bly.

“The in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty will unite more tight­ly in re­sponse to such a move,” he said.

In his ad­dress Wednes­day at the an­nu­al U.N. gath­er­ing, Yoon will speak about his as­sess­ment of the Russ­ian-North Ko­re­an moves, ac­cord­ing to his of­fice in South Ko­rea, which added it is dis­cussing coun­ter­mea­sures with the U.S., Japan and oth­er part­ners.

While Russ­ian-North Ko­re­an co­op­er­a­tion is feared to fu­el Rus­sia’s war ef­forts in Ukraine, it has al­so stoked se­cu­ri­ty jit­ters in South Ko­rea, where many think a Russ­ian trans­fer of so­phis­ti­cat­ed weapons tech­nolo­gies would help North Ko­rea ac­quire a func­tion­ing spy satel­lite, a nu­clear-pow­ered sub­ma­rine and more pow­er­ful mis­siles. Some ex­perts still say North Ko­rea would end up re­ceiv­ing food and cash in re­turn for sup­ply­ing am­mu­ni­tion and shells be­cause Rus­sia close­ly guards its high-tech weapons tech­nolo­gies.

North Ko­rea’s ad­vanc­ing nu­clear ar­se­nal has been a ma­jor source of ten­sions in the re­gion, with the North open­ly threat­en­ing to use nu­clear weapons in po­ten­tial con­flicts with its ri­vals and con­duct­ing a bar­rage of mis­sile tests since last year. In re­sponse, Yoon and U.S. Pres­i­dent Joe Biden in April agreed to ex­pand joint mil­i­tary ex­er­cis­es, in­crease the tem­po­rary de­ploy­ments of U.S. strate­gic as­sets and launch a bi­lat­er­al nu­clear con­sul­ta­tive group.

“Our two coun­tries (South Ko­rea and the U.S.) reaf­firmed that any nu­clear at­tack by North Ko­rea will be met with a swift, over­whelm­ing and de­ci­sive re­sponse that will bring about the end of the regime,” Yoon said.

“Go­ing for­ward, (South Ko­rea)-U.S. ex­tend­ed de­ter­rence will de­vel­op in­to a joint sys­tem in which both coun­tries dis­cuss, de­cide and act to­geth­er,” he said. “We will al­so en­hance the abil­i­ty to de­ter and re­spond to any nu­clear or mis­sile threat from North Ko­rea.”

Since en­ter­ing Rus­sia last Tues­day in his first for­eign trav­el in 4 1/2 years, Kim has in­spect­ed some of Rus­sia’s most ad­vanced weapons sys­tems in­clud­ing nu­clear-ca­pa­ble bombers, fight­er jets, hy­per­son­ic mis­siles and a war­ship. Dur­ing a sum­mit with Putin at Rus­sia’s most im­por­tant space launch cen­ter on Wednes­day, Kim vowed “full and un­con­di­tion­al sup­port” for Putin.

Some South Ko­re­ans call on their gov­ern­ment to con­sid­er pro­vid­ing lethal weapons to Ukraine in re­tal­i­a­tion against Rus­sia’s pos­si­ble weapons tech­nol­o­gy trans­fers. But South Ko­rea’s De­fense Min­istry said its pol­i­cy of not sup­ply­ing weapons to coun­tries at war re­mained un­changed.

Yoon re­cent­ly an­nounced South Ko­rea will pro­vide an ad­di­tion­al $300 mil­lion to Ukraine next year, on top of the $150 mil­lion promised this year. He said South Ko­rea will pre­pare for a mid- to long-term sup­port pack­age worth more than $2 bil­lion.

South Ko­rea has pro­vid­ed Ukraine with dem­i­ning equip­ment, emer­gency evac­u­a­tion ve­hi­cles, pick­up trucks, med­ical sup­plies, tablet PCs and oth­er items. Yoon said in the com­ing year South Ko­rea will con­tin­ue to com­mu­ni­cate close­ly with Ukraine to send it what is tru­ly need­ed.

Since tak­ing of­fice last year, Yoon, a con­ser­v­a­tive, has made a bol­stered mil­i­tary al­liance with the U.S. the heart of his for­eign pol­i­cy while push­ing to move be­yond his­to­ry dis­putes with Japan — Ko­rea’s for­mer colo­nial ruler — and ex­pand a tri­lat­er­al Seoul-Wash­ing­ton-Tokyo se­cu­ri­ty co­op­er­a­tion. That has trig­gered con­cerns that South Ko­rea’s re­la­tions with Chi­na, its biggest trad­ing part­ner, will be hurt.

Yoon dis­missed such a no­tion, say­ing “the tri­lat­er­al co­op­er­a­tion har­bors no in­ten­tion of mar­gin­al­iz­ing any par­tic­u­lar na­tion or es­tab­lish­ing an ex­clu­sive coali­tion.”

Cit­ing his meet­ings with Chi­nese Pres­i­dent Xi Jin­ping last No­vem­ber and Pre­mier Li Qiang this month, both on the mar­gins of re­gion­al gath­er­ings, Yoon said he learned that “Chi­na al­so at­tach­es im­por­tance to (South Ko­rea)-Chi­na re­la­tions.”

Dur­ing their No­vem­ber meet­ing, Yoon said Xi ex­pressed his will­ing­ness to vis­it South Ko­rea when the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic sit­u­a­tion sta­bi­lized. Yoon said Li and Japan­ese Prime Min­is­ter Fu­mio Kishi­da had al­so ex­pressed their sup­port for re­sum­ing a tri­lat­er­al Seoul-Bei­jing-Tokyo sum­mit in South Ko­rea for the first time in four years.

“All three coun­tries — the Re­pub­lic of Ko­rea, the Unit­ed States and Japan — share a com­mon un­der­stand­ing that it is im­por­tant for Chi­na to play a re­spon­si­ble and con­struc­tive role not on­ly in re­solv­ing pend­ing is­sues on the Ko­re­an Penin­su­la and in the re­gion but al­so in ad­dress­ing glob­al chal­lenges,” Yoon said.

In his U.N. speech, Yoon said that he’ll al­so raise the is­sue of gaps in three ar­eas — de­vel­op­ment, cli­mate re­spons­es and dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion — and present how South Ko­rea will con­tribute to re­solv­ing them. Yoon said that as a non-per­ma­nent mem­ber of the Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil for the 2024-25 term, he’ll al­so men­tion that South Ko­rea will play a re­spon­si­ble role on se­cu­ri­ty is­sues that re­quire in­ter­na­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty like the war in Ukraine and the North Ko­re­an nu­clear pro­gram.

While in New York, Yoon said he will hold bi­lat­er­al sum­mits with the lead­ers of about 30 coun­tries. Yoon said he’ll try to use those sum­mits to dis­cuss bi­lat­er­al co­op­er­a­tion and ex­plain South Ko­re’s hopes to host the 2030 World Ex­po in Bu­san, South Ko­rea’s sec­ond-biggest city.

SEOUL, South Ko­rea (AP) —