North Korea has deployed a first contingent of 1,500 soldiers of its special forces in Vladivostok, in the Russian Far East, and will send others soon, the South Korean intelligence service said this Friday, October 18. This “detected from October 8 to 13 that North Korea transported its special forces to Russia in a Russian navy transport ship, confirming the start of North Korea’s military participation,” he said. he indicated in a press release, publishing detailed satellite images.
Still according to this source, North Korean troops deployed in Russia have been stationed in military bases in the Russian Far East, notably “in Vladivostok, Ussuriysk, Khabarovsk and Blagoveshchensk. These soldiers should be “deployed on the front lines as soon as they have completed their acclimatization training.
“The National Intelligence Service (NIS) said it had learned that the North had recently decided to send four brigades of 12,000 troops, including special forces, to the war in Ukraine,” the NIS said earlier. South Korean news agency Yonhap, citing the country’s intelligence.
As relations between Pyongyang and Seoul have deteriorated in recent months, nuclear-armed North Korea has moved closer to Russia, a long-time ally of the North Korean regime. Russian President Vladimir Putin made a special visit to Pyongyang in June this year, during which the two countries signed a mutual defense agreement, the details of which had not been disclosed.
Increasingly close ties between Moscow and Pyongyang
South Korea has long accused the North of supplying weapons to Russia for its war in Ukraine, which would violate U.N. sanctions on both countries. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol chaired an emergency meeting Friday to discuss increasingly close ties between the two countries, seen as a growing threat. Pyongyang’s growing support for Moscow’s war in Ukraine, which goes “beyond the transfer of military equipment and translates into troop deployments”, represents “a significant threat to the security not only of our country but also of the international community,” the South Korean presidential office said in a statement.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky previously said he had intelligence information that North Korea was training some 10,000 troops to support Russia in its military campaign against kyiv. The Kremlin last week denied reports from kyiv and Seoul indicating that North Korean soldiers are lending a hand in Ukraine to the Russian army, which is receiving ammunition and missiles from Pyongyang according to the West.
North Korea has an interest in sending troops to fight in Ukraine, said Hong Sung-pyo, a researcher at the Korea Institute of Military Affairs. “The North Korean military has mainly trained in isolation,” using “obsolete weapons, and lacks overseas experience,” he said. The North likely views Ukraine “as a conflict from which it can gain valuable intelligence,” “even if it means risking the lives of its own citizens,” he continued.