Here’s what you need to know about the June 3 poll:

The two candidates also differ in their approach to the US, the country’s most important security ally, and to China, its biggest trading partner.Lee, who espouses what he calls a pragmatic foreign policy, has said it is crucial to maintain South Korea’s alliance with the US and pursue security cooperation with Japan. However, he has pledged to prioritise “national interests” and said there’s “no need to unnecessarily antagonise China or Russia”.

Kim, meanwhile, has questioned Lee’s commitment to the US-South Korea alliance, and has promised to hold an immediate summit meeting with US President Donald Trump if elected to discuss tariffs.“I have a very friendly and trusting relationship,” with the US leader, Kim has said.He has also indicated a willingness to discuss sharing more of the cost of stationing US troops in the country, something Trump has demanded for years.

Lee Sung-yoon, board member of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, described the policy differences between the rival camps as “immutable” and referred to earlier comments by the Democratic Party’s Lee, because of which some view him as being soft on China and Russia.“In the past, Lee has said South Korea should not get involved in China’s posture towards Taiwan, and just say thank you to both Beijing and Taiwan and stay out of the conflict. He has said of the trilateral defensive drills among US, Japan and South Korea as ‘a defence disaster’ and an ‘extremely pro-Japanese act’. And more than once he has said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy incited Russia to invade because he was a political novice who said unfortunate things.”

The analyst said Lee has – over the course of the election campaign – tried to walk back some of his statements in a bid to appeal to more moderate voters.

However, “I would venture to guess that people sitting in the councils of power in Washington, DC, or Tokyo or in Kyiv, Ukraine, are not overly jubilant at the prospect of a Lee administration,” he said.Customs records show how new players emerged to supply customer-facing businesses after official distribution channels shut down.

Before the war, Russian subsidiaries of Apple, Samsung and Electrolux were almost exclusively responsible for importing their products.But since February 2022, only about 1 percent of shipments have gone through these official channels, according to customs data.

Instead, the vast majority of Samsung, Apple and Electrolux products have been imported by dozens of little-known Russian companies and individual entrepreneurs.Most of the shippers named in Russian import data are incorporated in jurisdictions that have not joined sanctions against Moscow, including the UAE, China and Hong Kong.