Russia will soon send a team of experts to South Korea to look into the cause of the sinking of a South Korean warship, a senior U.S. State Department official said Wednesday in Washington.
"Russia is intending to send a team to South Korea," Yonhap News quoted an official as saying. "Obviously, Russia will have to satisfy itself as to the findings of the investigation."
Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said earlier in the day that Seoul has asked both Beijing and Moscow to dispatch their own teams for a transparent examination of the outcome of the probe of the Cheonan, which sank along the western sea border with North Korea, killing 46 sailors.
China, a veto power within the U.N. Security Council, has not yet sent a team to examine the findings, reached by an international team from South Korea, the U.S., Australia, Britain and Sweden. The report cites a torpedo fired by a North Korean submarine.
North Korea denies involvement and threatens all-out war if punished or sanctioned.
President Lee said Monday that his government will bring the case to the Security Council, suspend inter-Korean economic ties and bolster national defense.
The Russian development comes a day after President Dmitry Medvedev placed a phone call to Lee to discuss the sinking of the Cheonan.
Medvedev at the time pledged to cooperate closely with South Korea on that matter, but also expressed hope for "restraint" and prevention of "any further escalation of tensions on the Korean Peninsula."