Seoul   -  North Korea has decided to send a “large-scale” troop deployment to support Moscow’s war in Ukraine, with 1,500 special forces already in Russia’s Far East and undergoing training, Seoul’s spy agency said Friday.

The National Intelligence Service released detailed satellite images it said showed the first deployment of elite North Korean special forces soldiers being moved by Russian military vessels to Vladivostok. Seoul’s spy agency said that between October 8 and 13, it had detected “North Korea transported its special forces to Russia via a Russian Navy transport ship, confirming the start of North Korea’s military participation” in Moscow’s war in Ukraine. The first contingent of troops -- which South Korean media said were from an elite unit under North Korea’s Special Operations Forces, also known as the “Storm Corps” -- are currently stationed in military bases across Russia’s Far East.  N. Korea to send ‘12,000 soldiers’ for Russia’s war in Ukraine: Yonhap Meanwhile, North Korea has decided to send “large-scale troops” to support Russia in its war against Ukraine, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported Friday, citing Seoul’s spy agency.

“The National Intelligence Service said it has learned that the North has recently decided to send four brigades of 12,000 soldiers, including special forces, to the war in Ukraine,” Yonhap said. The NIS declined to confirm the report to AFP.  “The movement of North Korean troops has already begun,” an NIS source told Yonhap.