Russia, Ukraine and the Koreas: Could Trump rock emerging wartime deals?

A laser beam downs drones by heating up and “frying” their electronics – each invisible, soundless “shot” is more precise and less costly than an air defence missile.

Hanwha Aerospace, a South Korean defence company, has fire-tested and is about to start mass-producing the world’s first-ever optical fibre laser weapon.

Seoul may have to follow suit, two South Korean officials told Bloomberg on Thursday.

However, a member of the Ukrainian delegation that visited Seoul earlier this month doubts it.

“I don’t think they will refuse. They seemed rather independent and self-sufficient in their diplomatic and military politics,” Roman Bochkala, co-founder of a Ukrainian charity fund that delivers arms and other crucial supplies to the front line, told Al Jazeera.

“It’s paramount to [South] Korea to maximally compensate for the potential danger of real combat experience the North Korean army might get,” he said.

Another Ukrainian analyst agreed – but said that Seoul may not sell other lethal weaponry to Kyiv.

“Such [weaponry] will most likely not be limited, but we will have to pay for it,” Kyiv-based analyst Aleksey Kushch told Al Jazeera. “But Seoul will hardly make artillery shells for us. And won’t send any tanks.”

South Korea has reportedly supplied hundreds of thousands of artillery shells via the United States and pledged a $2.3bn low-interest loan to Kyiv.

Seoul is the world’s 10th-largest arms exporter, and its clients already include four nations that border Russia – Poland, Estonia, Finland and Norway.

But Kyiv may be the first to receive the lasers in what could significantly knock down the price of Ukraine’s air defence.