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South Korea summoned the Russian ambassador to Seoul Monday to criticize Pyongyang’s decision to send thousands of soldiers to support Moscow’s war in Ukraine, the foreign ministry said, calling for their immediate withdrawal.
About 1,500 North Korean special forces soldiers are already in Russia acclimatizing, likely to head to the front lines soon, Seoul’s spy agency said Friday, with additional troops set to depart soon, Pyongyang’s first such deployment overseas.
South Korea, which has long claimed the nuclear-armed North is supplying Russia with weaponry for use in Ukraine, has expressed alarm over the deployment, which comes after Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a military deal in June.
Vice foreign minister Kim Hong-kyun expressed Seoul’s “grave concerns regarding North Korea’s recent dispatch of troops to Russia and strongly urged the immediate withdrawal of North Korean forces and the cessation of related cooperation,” the ministry said in a statement.
