South Korean Navy Seal broke the law to fight in Ukraine, calls it ‘the Wild West’
- Ken Rhee was one of just 13 South Koreans to travel to Ukraine, according to Russian statistics – including four who were killed
- Seoul banned its citizens from travelling to Ukraine, so Rhee was breaking the law but he said it would have been a ‘crime’ not to help
A former South Korean Navy Seal turned YouTuber who risked jail time to leave Seoul and fight for Ukraine says it would have been a “crime” not to use his skills to help.
Ken Rhee, an ex-special warfare officer, signed up at the Ukrainian embassy in Seoul the moment President Volodymyr Zelensky asked for global volunteers and was fighting on the front lines near Kyiv by early March.
To get there, he had to break South Korean law – Seoul banned its citizens from travelling to Ukraine, and Rhee, who was injured in a fall while leading a special operations patrol there, was met at the airport by 15 police officers on his return.
But the celebrity ex-soldier, who has a YouTube channel with 700,000 followers and documented much of his Ukraine experience on his popular Instagram account, says he has no regrets.
“You’re walking down the beach and you see a sign by the water saying ‘no swimming’ – but you see someone drowning. It’s a crime not to help. That is how I see it,” he said.
Rhee was born in South Korea but raised in the United States. He attended the Virginia Military Institute and planned to join the US Navy Seals, but his father – a “patriot”, he says – convinced his son to return to South Korea to enlist.