North Korea has sent 1,500 special forces troops to Russia’s Far East for training with plans to deploy them in Ukraine, South Korea’s spy agency said Friday.
The troops, transported to Vladivostok from Oct. 8 to 13, have received Russian military uniforms, weapons, and fake Russian IDs, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) said.
Earlier, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol called an emergency meeting to address the growing security threat posed by North Korean troops’ involvement in Russia’s war against Ukraine, according to Yoon’s office
“The participants … shared the view that the current situation where Russia and North Korea’s closer ties have gone beyond the movement of military supplies to actual dispatch of troops is a grave security threat not only to our country but to the international community,” his office stated.
Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelensky has also accused North Korea of preparing to send an additional 10,000 soldiers to support Russia, though NATO’s chief stated there’s currently no evidence though NATO’s chief Mark Rutte said there was no evidence of Pyongyang’s presence at this stage.
South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) also said it had been working with Ukrainian intelligence service and had used facial recognition artificial intelligence technology to identify North Korean officers in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region supporting Russian forces firing North Korean missiles.
While South Korea has faced pressure from Western allies to provide weapons to Ukraine, it has refrained from doing so. Military analysts suggest Seoul’s primary concern is Russia’s potential support for North Korea’s missile program.
Ramon Pacheco Pardo of King’s College in London said despite the gravity of the development, it may not be heavy enough to shift Seoul’s position.
“When it comes to South Korea, I think that its red line is Russia providing support to North Korea that allows Pyongyang to substantially improve its nuclear and missile program, not North Korea’s support for Russia,” Pardo said.
Since August 2022, North Korea has supplied over 8 million artillery and missile rounds to Russia.
The deployment of the special forces troops would mark North Korea’s first significant military involvement since the 1950-1953 Korean War, though they reportedly sent much smaller contingents to the Vietnam War and the civil conflict in Syria.
With Post wires
