North Korea has sent 1,500 special forces troops to the Russian Far East for training and plans to deploy them to Ukraine, South Korea’s intelligence agency said Friday.
The troops, transported to Vladivostok from October 8 to 13, received Russian military uniforms, weapons and fake Russian identity cards, 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 .
“Participants…shared the view that the current situation, in which closer ties between Russia and North Korea go beyond the simple movement of military supplies to the sending of troops, poses a serious security threat not only to our country but also to the international community,” his office said. declared.
Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelensky also accused North Korea of preparing to send 10,000 more troops to support Russia, although the NATO chief said there was currently no evidence. NATO 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 worked with Ukrainian intelligence services and used facial recognition artificial intelligence technology to identify North Korean officers in the eastern Donetsk region. of Ukraine, supporting Russian forces firing North Korean missiles.
Although South Korea has been pressured by its Western allies to supply weapons to Ukraine, it has refrained from doing so. Military analysts suggest that Seoul’s main concern is Russia’s potential support for North Korea’s missile program.
Ramon Pacheco Pardo of King’s College London said that despite the severity of the development, it might not be big enough to change Seoul’s position.
“As for South Korea, I think its red line is Russia’s support for North Korea which allows Pyongyang to significantly improve its nuclear and missile program, not South Korea’s support North to Russia,” Pardo said.
Since August 2022, North Korea has supplied more than 8 million artillery shells and missiles to Russia.
The deployment of the special forces troops would mark North Korea’s first significant military involvement since the 1950-1953 Korean War, although they would have sent much smaller contingents to the Vietnam War and civil conflict in Syria.
With post wires
