Seoul: South Korea on Monday demanded the immediate withdrawal of North Korean troops stationed in Russia and summoned the Russian ambassador to protest growing military cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow. South Korea's spy agency has confirmed that North Korea has sent 1,500 special operations forces to Russia to support Moscow's war against Ukraine.

10 thousand soldiers are being prepared

Before South Korea, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had said that his government had received intelligence that 10,000 North Korean soldiers were being prepared to join the Russian army.

During a meeting with Russian envoy Georgy Zinoviev, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Hong-kyun said South Korea will mobilize all means to deal with actions that threaten its national security interests in collaboration with the global community.

Our cooperation is not against South Korea: Russia

The Russian embassy quoted Zinoviev as saying that Russian-North Korean cooperation is not aimed at conflicting with South Korea's security interests.

Ukrainian drones attack Russian wine plants

An explosion at an ethanol plant caused by overnight drone strikes from Ukraine caused a fire and damaged two other alcohol-producing plants in Russia, Russian officials said on Tuesday. The explosion rocked the Biokhim biochemical plant in Russia's Tambov region, causing a short-lived fire, Tambov Governor Maxim Yegorov said on the Telegram messaging app. There were no casualties in the attack, Yegorov said.

North Korea denied the claims

Meanwhile, North Korea has denied the allegations of South Korea and the US. Both countries accused North Korea of ​​providing weapons to Russian forces. North Korea criticized the claim of South Korea's spy agency, which said that Pyongyang has sent its special forces to Russia.

On the other hand, Russia has also not confirmed the deployment of North Korean military forces. But it defended its military cooperation with North Korea. Russia said on Monday that our cooperation with North Korea is not against the security interests of South Korea. Pyongyang and Moscow have been allies since the inception of North Korea. But the war with Ukraine in 2022 has brought them closer.