SOUTH KOREANS vowed more protests against US anti-ballistic missiles sited in their country yesterday while North Korea remained defiant in the face of new sanctions.

At a press conference in Soseong-ri village in Seongju county, local campaigners against the deployment of the Thaad missiles said they would keep fighting after the final four of six launchers were delivered last week.

Eight thousand riot police were deployed against 500 protesters blocking the road to the golf course where the Thaad battery has been set up.

The Anti-Thaad Association said 100 demonstrators were injured in tussles with police, five seriously.

On Monday US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley claimed victory after the security council passed a new sanctions resolution against North Korea over its nuclear weapons and missile programmes, albeit greatly softened by Chinese amendments.

The resolution caps oil imports at the level of the past 12 months and bans textile exports.

Yesterday Pyongyang’s ambassador to Russia Kim Yong Jae rejected the new sanctions as illegal, saying the resolution was forced upon the security council by the US, “which uses the council as a tool.”

Mr Kim told Russian media: “We have lived under US sanctions for decades. Under the harshest of sanctions. But we have acquired everything we wanted to.

“If the US hopes that our position would be shaken and changed, that is an illusion.”

That echoed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s comments last week that North Koreans would “eat grass but will not give up the [nuclear] programme if they do not feel safe” from US aggression.