Seoul assures that North Korean forces in Russia are preparing to join the war in Ukraine

Follow live the latest news about the war in Ukraine

18 (EUROPA PRESS)

South Korean Intelligence has assured this Friday that North Korean special forces are already deployed in the Russian city of Vladivostok, according to an official statement published after sources from this department told the official South Korean media that Pyongyang was finalizing the deployment of 12,000 troops to fight alongside Moscow’s forces.

In its subsequent note, the National Intelligence Service of South Korea assures that, since the 8th of this month, some 1,500 North Korean special forces troops have been deployed in Vladivostok (Russia). The troops arrived in Russia on four landing ships and three frigates belonging to the Russian Pacific Fleet sent to North Korea for this purpose in what was a maneuver, according to North Korean Intelligence, unprecedented since 1990.

This contingent, adds South Korean Intelligence, “received Russian-made military uniforms and weapons, and were also issued falsified identification cards” to fight on the Ukrainian front.

North Korean soldiers are also stationed in Ussuriysk, Khabarovsk and Blagoveshchensk, and “are expected to be deployed to the front line as soon as their adaptation training is completed,” the note added.

As it has done on other occasions, South Korean Intelligence denounces that, since the beginning of the Russian invasion in February 2022, North Korea “has provided Russia with artillery shells, anti-tank missiles and short-range missiles, as well as more than eight millions of pieces of ammunition, including 122mm and 152mm artillery shells.”

Shortly before, intelligence sources, on condition of anonymity, estimated the final North Korean deployment to fight for Russia at around 12,000 soldiers, although the South Korean Intelligence service has not officially given details in this regard.

This past Thursday, the Vice Minister of Defense of South Korea, Kim Seon Ho, spoke about the possibility of this deployment but speculated on its nature: “North Korea could decide to send civilian personnel instead of military personnel. It is an option as significant as possible,” he noted at the time.

That same day and in statements to the media, the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, estimated that there were approximately 10,000 South Korean soldiers deployed in Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia, and prepared to fight in what the president described as “a step towards a war.” world”.

The level of military collaboration between Moscow and Pyongyang – reinforced during the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin last June – has been a recurring cause of suspicion in Western capitals, to the extent that Russia is one of the few countries of the world that maintain relations with the secretive regime of Kim Jong Un.