**North Korea Deploys Special Forces to Russia for Ukraine Training: South Korean Intelligence Reports**

North Korea has dispatched 1,500 special forces troops to Russia's Far East for training, with a planned deployment to Ukraine. The troops were sent to Vladivostok between October 8 and 13 and were provided with Russian military attire, weapons, and counterfeit Russian identification documents, according to South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS).

In response to this development, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol convened an emergency meeting to address the escalating security threat. Yoon's office reported, "The participants... shared the view that the current situation where Russia and North Korea's closer ties have gone beyond the movement of military supplies to actual dispatch of troops is a grave security threat not only to our country but to the international community."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused North Korea of preparing to send an additional 10,000 soldiers to assist Russia. However, NATO chief Mark Rutte indicated that there is currently no evidence of North Korean presence at this stage of the conflict.

The NIS has been collaborating with Ukrainian intelligence to identify North Korean officers in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region, utilizing facial recognition AI technology. These officers are said to be aiding Russian forces with North Korean missile launches.

Despite pressure from Western allies to supply weapons to Ukraine, South Korea has refrained, primarily due to concerns about Russia potentially supporting North Korea's missile program. Military analyst Ramon Pacheco Pardo from King's College in London commented, "When it comes to South Korea, I think that its red line is Russia providing support to North Korea that allows Pyongyang to substantially improve its nuclear and missile program, not North Korea's support for Russia."

Since August 2022, North Korea has supplied Russia with more than 8 million artillery and missile rounds. The deployment of the special forces marks North Korea’s first major military involvement since the Korean War (1950-1953), though smaller contingents were sent to the Vietnam War and the civil conflict in Syria.