South Korea summoned Russia’s ambassador to Seoul on Monday to criticize Pyongyang’s decision to send thousands of soldiers in support of Moscow’s war in Ukraine, the Foreign Ministry said, calling for their immediate withdrawal.

About 1,500 North Korean special forces soldiers are already acclimatizing in Russia and are likely to go to the front lines soon, Seoul’s spy agency said Friday, while additional troops are expected to leave soon, Pyongyang’s first such deployment abroad .

South Korea, which has long alleged that the nuclear-armed North is supplying Russia with weapons for use in Ukraine, has expressed concern about the deployment after Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a military deal in June.

Vice Foreign Minister Kim Hong-kyun expressed Seoul’s “serious concerns over North Korea’s recent deployment of troops to Russia and strongly urged the immediate withdrawal of North Korean forces and the cessation of related cooperation “, the ministry said in a statement.

Kim told Russia’s ambassador to South Korea, Georgiy Zinoviev, that North Korea, which provides Russia with weapons and troops for the war in Ukraine, “poses a significant security threat not only to South Korea but also to the international community.”

He also “stressed that such actions violate multiple UN Security Council resolutions and the UN Charter.”

North Koreans in Ukraine?

On Friday, Seoul’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) released detailed satellite images showing the first deployment of elite North Korean soldiers being moved to Vladivostok by Russian military ships.

Seoul’s spy agency said North Korea transported its special forces to Russia via a Russian Navy transport ship between October 8 and 13, confirming the start of North Korea’s military participation in Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

The first contingent of troops – which South Korean media said were from an elite unit among North Korea’s Special Operations Forces, also known as the ‘Storm Corps’ – are currently stationed at military bases in the Far East of Russia.

The special forces “are expected to be deployed to the front lines (of the conflict in Ukraine) once they complete acclimatization training,” NOS said.

The NOS also said on Friday that the North has provided Russia with “more than 13,000 containers of artillery shells, missiles, anti-tank missiles and other deadly weapons” since last August.

Pyongyang and Moscow have been allies since North Korea’s founding after World War II, and have grown even closer since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reported intelligence reports that North Korea was training 10,000 soldiers to support Russia in its fight against Kiev and said Moscow was relying on the North to make up for its significant losses.

Ukrainian media reported earlier this month that six North Korean military officers were killed in a Ukrainian missile attack on Russian-occupied territory near Donetsk – which South Korea’s defense minister said at the time was “very likely” to be true.

Read moreNorth Korean military officers ‘very likely’ killed in Ukraine, Seoul says

(AFP)