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

The South's National Intelligence Service (NIS) also said it had been working with Ukrainian intelligence service and had used facial recognition artificial intelligence (AI) 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 2023, the agency said, based on the remnants of weapons recovered from the battle front in Ukraine.

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

"The direct military co-operation between Russia and North Korea that has been reported by foreign media has now been officially confirmed," the spy agency said in a statement.

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