North Korea to send ‘12,000 soldiers’ for Russia’s war in Ukraine: Yonhap

AFP | Seoul, South Korea                                        

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North Korea has decided to send “large-scale troops” to support Russia in its war against Ukraine, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported yesterday citing Seoul’s spy agency.

“The National Intelligence Service said it has learned that the North has recently decided to send four brigades of 12,000 soldiers, including special forces, to the war in Ukraine,” Yonhap said.

The NIS declined to confirm the report to AFP. “The movement of North Korean troops has already begun,” an NIS source told Yonhap. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday he had intelligence reports that North Korea was training 10,000 soldiers to support Russia in its fight against Kyiv.

“They are preparing on their land, 10,000 soldiers, but they didn’t move them already to Ukraine or to Russia,” Zelensky said after meeting NATO defence ministers.

NATO cannot yet confirm : Rutte NATO chief Mark Rutte said Friday the alliance could not yet confirm South Korean intelligence that North Korea was deploying large-scale troops to support Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“At this moment, our official position is that we cannot confirm reports that North Koreans are actively now as soldiers engaged in the war effort,” Rutte told reporters following a meeting of NATO defence ministers in Brussels.

“But this, of course, might change,” he said.