(LEAD) Yoon makes surprise visit to Ukraine

▲ In this file photo, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol (R) shakes hands with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a summit in Hiroshima, Japan, on May 21, 2023. (Pool photo) (Yonhap)

(LEAD) Yoon-Ukraine visit

(LEAD) Yoon makes surprise visit to Ukraine

(ATTN: UPDATES with details)

By Lee Haye-ah

WARSAW, July 15 (Yonhap) -- South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has made an unannounced visit to Ukraine, his office said Saturday.

Yoon and first lady Kim Keon Hee arrived in Ukraine earlier in the day from Poland, according to senior presidential secretary for press affairs Kim Eun-hye.

Yoon visited the site of mass killings in Bucha, near Kyiv, before visiting Irpin, a civilian residential area that has been subject to large-scale missile attacks.

He plans to lay a wreath at a war monument before holding a summit with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The visit comes at the end of a two-leg trip that earlier took him to Lithuania for a North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit and then to Poland for an official visit.

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