S. Korea set to brief NATO on N. Korean troops in Russia

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was set to receive a briefing from senior South Korean officials on Monday regarding North Korean troops in Russia, according to NATO's website, with all signs suggesting that the North's troops may soon be ready for battlefield deployment against Ukraine forces. A South Korean delegation visiting Brussels will brief the NATO council on the North's troop deployment, and the ambassadors from NATO's Indo Pacific partners -- Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea -- will also join the briefing, NATO said in a notice on its website. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte will deliver a statement to media after the briefing, it said. The South Korean delegation, comprising high-level intelligence, defense and foreign officials, is visiting the NATO headquarters this week for the rare briefing after South Korea and the United States confirmed the North's dispatch of some 3,000 troops to eastern Russia for possible deployment to the war in Ukraine. Ukraine has clai med the troops have begun to move to the Kursk border region in western Russia, where the Ukrainian forces launched an incursion in August. The delegation, led by First Deputy Director of the National Intelligence Service Hong Jang-won, was expected to share with NATO its assessments regarding the North's troop deployment and their activities. They could possibly discuss support measures for Ukraine, including sending a team of South Korean intelligence and other officials to Kyiv to monitor North Korean troops. Discussions may also touch on South Korea's options for its assistance to Ukraine, with a possible consideration of shifting its aid policy to weapons provision, as opposed to Seoul's current position of maintaining nonlethal aid. Source: Yonhap News Agency