North Korea troops readying for Ukraine combat: South Korea [Video]

SEOUL, Oct 18 (Reuters) — North Korea has shipped 1,500 special forces troops to Russia’s far east for training and acclimatizing at local military bases and will likely be deployed for combat in the war in Ukraine, South Korea’s spy agency said on Friday.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) also said it had been working with Ukrainian intelligence service and had used facial recognition artificial intelligence technology to identify North Korean officers in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region supporting Russian forces firing North Korean missiles.

In more than 13,000 containers, North Korea has shipped artillery rounds, ballistic missiles and anti-tank rockets to Russia since August last year, the agency said, based on the remnants of weapons recovered from the battlefront in Ukraine.

In all, more than eight million artillery and rocket rounds have been shipped to Russia, it said.

“The direct military cooperation between Russia and North Korea that has …