South Korea says North troop dispatch to Russia is 'grave security threat'

seoul, southbound korea — 

South Korea said connected Friday that it believes North Korea has sent troops to Russia, marking a sedate information menace to the planetary assemblage that Seoul volition respond to with each disposable means, the statesmanlike bureau said successful a statement.

Separately, the country's spy bureau said North Korea was participating successful the warfare successful Ukraine and had decided to nonstop 12,000 troops, including a peculiar forces unit, Yonhap quality bureau reported.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol held an unscheduled information gathering with cardinal intelligence, subject and nationalist information officials to sermon North Korean troops' engagement successful Russia's warfare against Ukraine, it said.

"The participants ... shared the presumption that the existent concern wherever Russia and North Korea's person ties person gone beyond the question of subject supplies to existent dispatch of troops is simply a sedate information menace not lone to our state but to the planetary community," it said.

South Korean officials person antecedently said it was apt existent that immoderate North Korean unit were successful Russia and progressive successful its warfare with Ukraine but person not fixed a wide reply connected the quality oregon the standard of immoderate specified deployment.

Yoon's bureau said South Korea unneurotic with its allies person been intimately tracking North Korea's unit dispatch to Russia from the archetypal stages. It did not, however, supply immoderate quality to backup the assertion of unit deployment.

It besides did not specify if it had accusation connected whether North Korean troops were progressive successful combat.

South Korea's National Intelligence Service could not beryllium instantly reached for confirmation of the study connected the fig of North Korean troops.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused North Korea connected Thursday of deploying officers alongside Russia and preparing to nonstop thousands of troops to assistance Moscow's warfare effort, though NATO's main Mark Rutte said determination was nary grounds of Pyongyang's beingness astatine this stage.

Zelenskyy said astir 10,000 North Korean soldiers are preparing for deployment to combat Ukraine but Kyiv's Western allies person yet to corroborate its assertion that Pyongyang is sending troops, though they accidental they are studying it.

Since their leaders' acme successful the Russian acold eastbound past year, North Korea and Russia person dramatically upgraded their subject ties and they met again successful June to motion a broad strategical concern that includes a communal defence pact.

South Korean and U.S. officials person said North Korea has been supplying ballistic missiles and different munitions to Russia.

Since September past year, the North has shipped astatine slightest 16,500 containers of weapons to Russia and Russia has fired missiles from those shipments successful Ukraine, Washington has said.

Russia and North Korea some contradict they person engaged successful arms transfers.

The Kremlin has besides dismissed South Korean assertions that North Korea whitethorn person sent immoderate subject unit to assistance Russia against Ukraine.