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South Korea’s spy agency says North Korea is set to send as many as 12,000 troops to fight with Russia in Ukraine, in what Seoul described as a “grave security threat”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky earlier said 10,000 North Korean soldiers could join the war, based on intelligence information.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol called for a security meeting on Friday and said the international community must respond with “all available means”.
This comes as evidence mounts that North Korea is supplying Russia with ammunition, as recently demonstrated by the recovery of a missile in Ukraine’s Poltava region.
Moscow and Pyongyang have also been deepening their cooperation in recent months. Last week, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un greeted Russian President Vladimir Putin on his birthday, calling him his “closest comrade”.
Friday’s security meeting was attended by key officials from South Korea’s National Security Office, the Ministry of National Defence, and the National Intelligence Service, Yoon’s office said.
“[The participants] decided not to ignore the situation and to jointly respond to it with the international community using all available means,” it said.
The allegation from the National Intelligence Service comes days after Ukrainian military intelligence sources said that Russia’s army is forming a unit of North Koreans.
The BBC has reached out to the NIS for comment.
Earlier this week, Putin introduced a bill to ratify a military pact he made with Kim, which pledges that Russia and North Korea will help each other in the event of “aggression” against either country.
A military source in Russia’s Far East told BBC Russian this week that “a number of North Koreans have arrived” and were stationed in one of the military bases near Ussuriysk, to the north of Vladivostok.
However, some military experts believe the Russian military units will have difficulties incorporating North Korean troops into their frontlines.
Apart from the language barrier, the North Korean army has no recent experience of combat operations, they said.
“They could guard some sections of the Russian-Ukrainian border, which would free Russian units for fighting elsewhere,” said Valeriy Ryabykh, editor of the Ukrainian publication Defence Express.
“I would rule out the possibility that these units will immediately appear on the front line.”
Additional reporting by Jake Kwon and Hosu Lee in Seoul
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