South Korea summoned the Russian ambassador on Monday ( Oct 21 ) to criticise Pyongyang’s decision to send thousands of soldiers to support Moscow’s war in Ukraine, the foreign ministry said, calling for their immediate withdrawal.
In Pyongyang’s primary for deployment overseas, about 1, 500 North Korean specific forces soldiers are already in Russia acclimatising and good to head to the front lines after, Seoul’s spy agency said Friday, with more troops set to exit immediately.
Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, have long claimed that the nuclear-armed North is providing Russia with arms for use in Ukraine, but they have signed a military package in June.
Vice-minster Kim Hong-kyun told Russian embassy Georgiy Zinoviev that Seoul” powerfully urged the immediate removal of North Korean makes” and “grave concerns about North Korea’s new release of troops to Russia.”
The first batch of 1, 500 North Korean specific troops from the aristocracy” Storm Corps” had arrived in Vladivostok on Russian war vessels, according to Seoul’s spy agency’s detailed satellite images.
According to Kim, any defense ties between the two nations violate numerous Security Council commitments.
Soviet adviser Zinovyev” stressed that cooperation between Russia and North Korea… is not directed against the objectives of South Korea’s surveillance”, the ambassador said in a statement.
The Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, also said Monday that Moscow will” continue developing this cooperation further”.
He continued,” North Korea is our close neighbor and partner, and we develop relations in all areas, and it’s our sovereign right,” while declining to comment on whether Russia is using North Korean troops.
Also Monday, South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol spoke to NATO chief Mark Rutte, urging the alliance to take” concrete countermeasures” against growing Russia-North Korea cooperation.
NATO, which has not yet confirmed the North Korean troop deployments, said that it “would mark a significant escalation” in the conflict, Rutte said on X.
British foreign minister David Lammy, who was in Seoul on Monday, called Russia’s actions “reckless and illegal” and added that London would work with Seoul to respond, according to Yoon’s office.