South Korea’s Dong-A Ilbo newspaper said Seoul agreed in March 2023 to lend 500,000 155 mm artillery shells to the U.S. military. Yonhap News Agency reported the same day that the deal involved at least 330,000 shells. (Victor Everhart Jr./U.S. Army)
CAMP HUMPHREYS, South Korea — Seoul has agreed to lend Washington hundreds of thousands of artillery shells to shore up its inventory, South Korean media outlets said Wednesday in reports that government officials have declined to address.
South Korea’s Dong-A Ilbo newspaper said Seoul agreed in March to lend 500,000 155 mm artillery shells to the U.S. military. Yonhap News Agency, citing government and defense officials, reported the same day that the deal involved at least 330,000 shells.
The Dong-A Ilbo report cited unnamed government sources who said officials from both countries had “struggled” to devise an agreement in which South Korea could help the U.S. support the war effort in Ukraine without violating South Korea’s policy of not exporting lethal aid.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol so far has donated humanitarian aid to Ukraine but has publicly declined to send arms directly to the embattled nation at war with Russia since February 2022. Seoul’s trade policies say exports must be “used for a peaceful purpose” that do not “affect international peace, safety maintenance, and national security.”
Government spokespeople in Seoul were close-lipped about the media reports.
A Ministry of National Defense spokesman declined to comment and said by phone that the U.S. and South Korea were still discussing “measures to support the protection and freedom of Ukraine.”
A spokesman for the Defense Acquisition Program Administration, South Korea’s defense research and procurement agency, also declined to comment.
The New York Times first reported last week that what appeared to be classified U.S. military documents were posted on social media platforms. A Times review of the documents revealed senior South Korean officials discussed sending artillery shells to Poland, Ukraine’s ally, to placate the U.S. request for support.
The U.S. previously made a deal to purchase 100,000 artillery rounds from South Korea, unnamed U.S. officials told The Wall Street Journal for a Nov. 10 report. Discussions to resupply Washington’s ammunition stockpile were still ongoing, the Ministry of National Defense said at the time.
The U.S. has supplied Ukraine with more than one million 155 mm artillery shells, 160 howitzers and 38 High Mobility Artillery Rocket systems, according to a Department of Defense factsheet from February.
That commitment has led military leaders to express concern for the U.S.’s ammunition stockpile.
“I’m concerned, I know [Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin] is, and you are correct to point this out,” Army Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told lawmakers during a budget hearing on March 29. “We’ve got a ways to go to make sure our stockpiles are prepared for the real contingencies.”
