SEOUL - As evidence mounts of North Korea’s plans to send as many as 12,000 of its special forces to aid Russia in the Ukraine war, the implications for South Korea are looking grave.

       Analysts call it a major elevation of the mutual defence treaty signed by Russia and North Korea in June, which will turn Russia from being once a strategic partner of South Korea to a military threat.

       By sending its troops to the battlefield for the first time since the Korean War in the 1950s, North Korea stands to gain valuable combat experience, which would embolden it to further threaten the South.

       Tensions between the two Koreas have been running high, with North Korea blowing up sections of inter-Korean roads on Oct 15 in anger over South Korean drones flying over Pyongyang with propaganda leaflets. The same week, it amended its Constitution to label South Korea a “hostile state”.

       But the biggest concern for South Korea would be the much-coveted military technologies that North Korea could get from Russia in return for its aid.

       Russian President Vladimir Putin, “by way of courting” North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his soldiers, is a threat to South Korea’s security, Dr Lee Sung-yoon, global fellow at the Washington-based think-tank Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars, told The Straits Times.

       Dr Lee described it as a “growing military collusion” between Russia and North Korea, which is intended to “sow long-term security concerns in Washington, Seoul, Ukraine and beyond”.

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       On Oct 18, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) said it believed North Korea plans to send about 12,000 members from its special forces unit to support Russia in its war with Ukraine. About 1,500 have already been deployed to the Russian city of Vladivostok for training as at Oct 8, NIS added.

       This was confirmed by Ukraine’s defence intelligence agency, which added that it received intel about the intended deployment of the North Korean troops from Nov 1.

       North Korea’s armed forces are among the five largest in the world, with nearly 1.3 million active personnel, and an additional 600,000 in reserve. The South Korean military estimates that the North’s elite forces number at least 40,000.

       NIS said the North Korean soldiers had been issued Russian military uniforms and weapons, along with fake ID cards of Siberia residents who bear similar facial features to North Koreans.

       A video posted by the Ukrainian Centre for Strategic Communication on Oct 19 purportedly shows North Korean-looking soldiers collecting Russian military gear at a training centre in Russia.

       On Oct 21, a pro-Russia Telegram account @rvvoenkor_bot posted a photo showing the Russian and North Korean flags side by side on a Ukrainian battlefield, indicating that North Korea has likely sent troops to support Russia in its prolonged war with Ukraine.

       These revelations confirmed earlier suspicions that North Korean soldiers had been deployed in Russia’s attack against Ukraine when Ukrainian media reported that six North Koreans were among those killed on Oct 3 in a Ukrainian missile strike.

       Dr Doo Jin-ho, a principal research fellow at the Korea Institute for Defence Analyses, believes that North Korea would have received certain assurances from Russia in exchange for the elite troops.

       “North Korea is a struggling country right now, and it would be impossible for them to send troops or provide conventional weapons and ammunition to Russia unconditionally,” he told ST.

       He believes that Russia, in return, would now “most certainly” provide North Korea with a security umbrella, much like the US’ extended deterrence commitment to South Korea, where it deploys strategic assets on the Korean peninsula for defence purposes.

       “Historically, Russia has maintained a friendship with the Korean peninsula, but moving forward, Russia could become a real military threat rather than just a strategic partner. The dynamic on the Korean peninsula has evolved, and Russia’s involvement (in any military skirmish between the two Koreas) is now a concrete possibility,” Dr Doo said.

       Russia has traditionally maintained diplomatic “equidistance” between the two Koreas. But ties between Moscow and Seoul have been strained since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

       Moscow was upset at Seoul for joining Western sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, leading Russia to designate South Korea as an unfriendly country in March 2022.

       On its part, Seoul has repeatedly voiced its concerns about Russia’s cosying relations with the North.

       South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol issued an ultimatum in July to Russia to choose between the two Koreas, following Moscow’s signing of the mutual defence treaty with Pyongyang a month before.

       At that time, Mr Yoon had threatened to revise South Korea’s policy about not providing lethal weapons to aid Ukraine in its war.

       His office reiterated this threat on Oct 22, saying that South Korea will “gradually take countermeasures” in line with the level of military cooperation between Russia and North Korea.

       International relations professor Ramon Pacheco Pardo at King’s College London believes that South Korea will make good on its threat only if “Russia significantly scales up its help to North Korea, which doesn’t seem to be the case at the moment”.

       What concerns South Korea more is not the deployment of North Korean troops in Ukraine, but the potential military technologies that North Korea could receive from Russia in return for coming to the aid of its “closest comrade”.

       Mr Sean King, Asia specialist at New York-based consulting firm Park Strategies, said that by aiding and abetting Mr Putin, a fellow global pariah, in his time of need, Mr Kim has identified the opportunity for a “worthy investment”.

       Dr Cho Han-bum, senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification, said “any transfer of Russian military technology to North Korea would pose a threat to South Korean security”, adding that Pyongyang would be keen to seek technological advancement for its satellite, intercontinental ballistic missile and nuclear-powered submarine ambitions.

       Meanwhile, both Pyongyang and the Kremlin have steadfastly refused to address the claims of military collusion.

       An unnamed North Korean representative to the UN dismissed the allegations on Oct 21 as “groundless rumours... undermining the legitimate, friendly and cooperative relations between two sovereign states”. Ms Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of Mr Kim, rubbished the talk and called both South Korea and Ukraine “lunatics”.

       Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters it is Russia’s “sovereign right” to develop relations with its close neighbour and partner North Korea, emphasising that the partnership is not directed against any third country and should, therefore, not be a cause for concern.

       However, Seoul is not taking any chances. Citing a government source, Yonhap News reported that South Korea is considering sending a team to Ukraine to monitor the tactics and combat capabilities of the North’s elite forces in the field.

       On whether this means tensions between the two Koreas might spill over into Ukraine, Dr Cho said it is unlikely, but not impossible.

       “North Korea’s participation in the Ukraine war implies that the security dynamics of Europe and the Korean peninsula are becoming interconnected. If the North Korean military continues to engage on a large scale, South Korea’s response will become inevitable, increasing the possibility of escalation,” he added.