South Korea threatens legal action if fuel shipments to Russia are found to break the law

South Korea will take legal action if it determines that fuel shipments from its ports to Russia violated domestic law, the government has said. It was responding to a Guardian report on the trade. The statement was issued jointly by the foreign and trade ministries and the customs service.

What the analysis found

The Guardian examined port records and ship-tracking data and concluded that in July and August more than 176,000 tonnes of fuel, mostly diesel, was loaded at several South Korean ports onto seven tankers. The vessels made 14 voyages to Russia's far east. Three of the tankers are under UK and EU sanctions, and one of them received about 26,000 tonnes in a ship-to-ship transfer at an anchorage off Yeosu.

Isaac Levi, an analyst at the Finnish thinktank CREA, said the trade undermines the sanctions regime and South Korea's support for Ukraine. According to the International Energy Agency, Russia's refining capacity has been badly hit by Ukrainian drone strikes: throughput in June was the lowest in more than 20 years, and diesel output is down almost 30% year on year.

Seoul's position

The government says the refined products concerned fall outside its export controls on Russia, which mainly cover industrial machinery, electronics and vehicles. It also stated that loading such products at its ports is not a breach of domestic law. Whether South Korean-origin fuel was exported has not been confirmed, it said, and no diesel, aviation fuel or motor petrol had been exported to Russia via customs clearance. The owner or seller of the fuel is unclear.

Authorities will review the tankers' actual routes, deviations from declared destinations and the reasons for them. The three sanctioned tankers told South Korean officials they were heading to Japan or Singapore before sailing to Vladivostok. The Russian-flagged Aram Khachaturian loaded at Ulsan three times and each time declared a destination other than Russia.

Diplomatic friction

An adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the shipments contrasted sharply with South Korea's sanctions policy. The South Korean presidential office called the remarks contrary to fact and inappropriate and asked Ukraine to refrain from public comments. Ukraine's foreign ministry reportedly raised the issue through closed diplomatic channels, and spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi said Kyiv also has its own data.