SEOUL
\nNorth Korea has shipped 1,500 special forces troops to Russia\u2019s far east for training and acclimatizing at local military bases and will likely be deployed for combat in the war in Ukraine, South Korea\u2019s spy agency said on Friday.
\nSouth Korea\u2019s 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\u2019s Donetsk region supporting Russian forces firing North Korean missiles.
\nIn more than 13,000 containers, North Korea has shipped artillery rounds, ballistic missiles and anti-tank rockets to Russia since August last year, the agency said, based on the remnants of weapons recovered from the battle front in Ukraine.
\nIn all, more than eight million artillery and rocket rounds have been shipped to Russia, it said.
\n\u201cThe direct military cooperation between Russia and North Korea that has been reported by foreign media has now been officially confirmed,\u201d the spy agency said in a statement.
\nEarlier, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol called an unscheduled security meeting with key intelligence, military and national security officials to discuss North Korean troops\u2019 involvement in Russia\u2019s war against Ukraine, Yoon\u2019s office said.
\n\u201cThe participants \u2026 shared the view that the current situation where Russia and North Korea\u2019s 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,\u201d it said.
\nYoon\u2019s office said South Korea, together with its allies, has been closely tracking North Korea\u2019s troop dispatch to Russia from the initial stages.
\nSouth Korea will respond to the North\u2019s activities with all available means, it added, without elaborating on what actions it might take.
\nSouth Korea, which has emerged as a major global arms exporter, selling fighter jets, mechanized howitzers and missiles, has come under pressure from some Western allies including Washington to help arm Ukraine with lethal weapons but has stopped short of openly doing so.
\nRamon Pacheco Pardo of King\u2019s College in London said despite the gravity of the development, it may not be heavy enough to shift Seoul\u2019s position.
\n\u201cWhen 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\u2019s support for Russia.\u201d
\nRUSSIAN UNIFORMS, FAKE IDS
\nVessels belonging to Russia\u2019s Pacific Fleet were detected moving about 1,500 North Korean special forces troops to Vladivostok from Oct. 8 to 13 and are expected to resume the shipment of troops soon, the NIS said.
\nThe troops have been supplied with Russian military uniforms and weapons as well as fake identification documents for when they are deployed for combat, the NIS added.
\nThe agency said it used facial recognition AI to identify with a high degree of accuracy technical military officers from the North Korean military in Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine where they are supporting Russia\u2019s missile offensive and helping with technical glitches.
\nUkraine\u2019s President Volodymyr Zelensky accused North Korea on Thursday of deploying officers alongside Russia and preparing to send 10,000 soldiers to help Moscow\u2019s war effort, although NATO\u2019s chief Mark Rutte said there was no evidence of Pyongyang\u2019s presence at this stage.
\nSince their leaders\u2019 summit in the Russian far east last year, North Korea and Russia have dramatically upgraded their military ties and they met again in June to sign a comprehensive strategic partnership that includes a mutual defense pact.
\nRussia and North Korea both deny they have engaged in arms transfers. The Kremlin has also dismissed South Korean assertions that North Korea may have sent some military personnel to help Russia against Ukraine.
\nNorth Korea has 1.28 million active duty troops, according to South Korea\u2019s latest data, and has stepped up its development of a series of ballistic missiles and a nuclear arsenal, fueling regional tension and drawing international sanctions.
\nDeploying troops to Russia, if confirmed, would be its first major involvement in a war since the 1950-53 Korean War.
\nNorth Korea reportedly sent a much smaller contingent to the Vietnam War and to the civil conflict in Syria.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SEOUL North Korea has shipped 1,500 special forces troops to Russia\u2019s far east for training and acclimatizing at local military bases and will likely be deployed for combat in the war in Ukraine, South Korea\u2019s spy agency said on Friday. South Korea\u2019s National Intelligence Service (NIS) also said it had been working with Ukrainian intelligence …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":71803,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71816"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71834,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71816\/revisions\/71834"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}