Ukrainian activists on Wednesday made the case for South Korea to care more about the war in Ukraine.

If the world lets Russia win, it will be another reason North Korea will not want to give up its nuclear weapons, according to Daria Kaleniuk, the co-founder of the International Center for Ukrainian Victory.

“North Korea will not give up its nuclear weapons, looking at Russia as an example and how the world lets you have your way if you have nuclear weapons,” she said in an interview with The Korea Herald.

She said that by weaponizing its nuclear edge, Russia was making other countries tiptoe their way around the threat. In that sense Russia was “already using its nuclear weapons,” she argued. “If you are threatening other countries with nuclear weapons, then you are using your nuclear weapons.”

And by letting “the bully with nuclear weapons” get what it wants, the world would be setting a dangerous precedent.

“North Korea and China are watching how Russia is getting what it wants through nuclear blackmail,” she said.

“If the world allows Russia to triumph, North Korea and China could follow in Russia’s tracks, threatening nuclear use and making other countries bend to their will.”

She said giving up nuclear weapons was turning out to be “the biggest mistake” for Ukraine.

“We had one of the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world. In exchange for giving up nuclear weapons, we received a piece of paper, the so-called security assurances from the three countries of Russia, the UK and the US,” she said.

“One of these three countries, Russia, invaded us and is now committing genocide in the occupied territories, torturing, killing, raping, robbing and kidnapping our people.”

The US and the UK are trying to help, but the help Ukraine is getting isn’t comparable to how the US helped the UK during World War II, she said.

Ukraine still hasn’t gotten the modern fighter jets it’s been asking for over the past eight months. “Any military person will tell you that in the modern war, the sky is the priority and the key to victory,” she said.

“The key reason the US is very cautious in giving military aid to Ukraine, I think, is because of the fear of nuclear escalation.”

On South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol denying having supplied Ukraine with “lethal weapons,” after Russian President Vladimir Putin said doing so would ruin their bilateral relations, Kaleniuk said there was “nonlethal” aid that her country could use.

“What about armored vehicles, are they lethal? We have soldiers, medics on the front lines in civilian cars under artillery bullets because they don’t have armored vehicles. I know Korea has armored vehicles that you could provide us with,” she said.

The war in Ukraine will soon force all countries to decide which side they’re on, Kaleniuk said.

“Just imagine North Korea doing what Russia is doing. I believe that South Korea has to pick a side. And not picking a side is picking a side, and that is the side of the bully.”

She said the war “isn’t Ukraine’s only,” but a “global clash between democracies and autocracies.”

“It’s going to have implications everywhere, and also in East Asia and the Korean peninsula because North Korea and China are watching what the outcome of this war will be.”

She said she believed Russia is fighting this war to show that the democracies and liberal institutions have become “obsolete.” “Putin said so himself a few years ago (that liberalism is obsolete).”

Olena Tregub, the international assistance coordination director at the Ukrainian Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, said perhaps because of its tricky security situation, South Korea has been “careful not to provide Ukraine with military assistance, as other democracies have.”

She pointed out that South Korea has not introduced sanctions on its own either. “You joined the ones that were introduced already by the trans-Atlantic community, and after some consideration, not right away,” she said.

“We understand that China is your economic partner. We understand you have economic interests in Russia,” she said.

“But I think it’s important that you know the level of genocide that is happening in Ukraine.”

She said the Russian military was using rape as a strategy. Children were killed, some of them, according to reports, at a close range.

“My journalist colleagues who investigated how these children were killed, and in many instances Russian soldiers were pointing at them. They wanted to kill a child.”

Tregub said it will be in South Korea’s “vital interest” that Ukraine wins this war.

“I think there is already a sort of a new Cold War starting. We are now entering an even more bipolar world,” she said.

“South Korea is surrounded by pretty dangerous regimes. So I think what’s happening in Ukraine has a direct relevance for you too.”

She hit back at the argument made by some realist analysts, namely John Mearsheimer, that the US and NATO expansion were responsible for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“That is absolutely untrue,” she said. On the contrary, it was Ukraine not having a NATO membership that Russia took advantage of.

“NATO was telling Ukraine they were not ready to take us. Russia viewed it as a moment of weakness.”

Hanna Hopko, the former head of the Ukrainian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, said by including Ukraine in the NATO nuclear umbrella, the West could send a clear message.

“The West needs to deliver the safety guarantees that they promised to Ukraine, to defend the global nuclear nonproliferation regime,” she said.

“Making Ukraine a success story will be an investment in the prevention of new wars against democracies.”

Kaleniuk said that she and her colleagues traveled to Seoul to tell South Koreans “not to say no to Ukraine.” “Because we don’t want to give up.”

Ukraine was having to rely on help from its international allies after its production facilities and other critical infrastructures were destroyed by Russia.

“We are entering the winter with no heat, no electricity, no water. It’s like slow death. Millions of families will have to try to relocate, including families with kids,” she said.

“It’s very important right now that South Korea stands with Ukraine,” Tregub said. “When this passes, Ukrainians will remember who was standing with us in our darkest hours.”

By Kim Arin (arin@heraldcorp.com)