Pyongyang [North Korea], October 19: North Korea has shipped 1500 special forces troops to Russia's far east for training and acclimatising and will likely be deployed for combat in the war in Ukraine, South Korea's spy agency says.
South Korea's National Intelligence Service also says it has been working with the Ukrainian intelligence service and has used facial recognition artificial intelligence technology to identify North Korean officers in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region.
The officers are supporting Russian forces firing North Korean missiles, the agency says.
North Korea has shipped artillery rounds, ballistic missiles and anti-tank rockets in more than 13,000 containers sent to Russia since August 2023, the agency said, based on the remnants of weapons recovered from the battlefront in Ukraine.
In all, more than eight million artillery and rocket rounds have been shipped to Russia, it said.
"The direct military co-operation between Russia and North Korea that has been reported by foreign media has now been officially confirmed," the spy agency said in a statement.
Earlier, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol called an unscheduled security meeting with key intelligence, military and national security officials to discuss North Korean troops' involvement in Russia's war against Ukraine, Yoon's office said.
"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," it said.
Yoon's office said South Korea, together with its allies, has been closely tracking North Korea's troop dispatch to Russia from the initial stages.
South Korea will respond to the North's activities with all available means, it added, without elaborating on what actions it might take.
South Korea, which has emerged as a major global arms exporter, selling fighter jets, mechanised 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.
In Washington, the US House of Representatives intelligence committee chairman cited the South Korean report in a letter to President Joe Biden calling for an immediate classified briefing to the panel on the issue.
"These (North Korean) troops movements, if true, are alarming and are an extreme escalation of the conflict in Ukraine," wrote US Representative Mike Turner.
"They require an immediate response from the United States and our NATO allies to avoid a widening conflict."
The US National Security Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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."
Vessels belonging to Russia's Pacific Fleet were detected moving about 1500 North Korean special forces troops to Vladivostok from October 8 to 13 and are expected to resume the shipment of troops soon, South Korea's intelligence service said.
The troops have been supplied with Russian military uniforms and weapons as well as fake identification documents for when they are deployed for combat, the agency added.
It 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's missile offensive and helping with technical glitches.
Source: Fijian Broadcasting Corporation
