South Korea plans to track North Korean soldiers helping Putin in Ukraine

Seoul officials are getting ready to watch North Korean soldiers in Ukraine — a move thats making South Korea nervous about its northern neighbors growing military skills

Kim Jong Un sent more than 10 thousand troops to help Vladimir Putin in Ukraine (theyʼre wearing Russian uniforms to hide where theyʼre from). About three thousand of these soldiers are now near the fight zones: some in places like Kursk where Ukraine made a big push last summer

Last week Sergei Shoigu went to North Korea; this week Choe Son Hui is in Moscow — both trips are about dealing with other countries complaints about NK soldiers in Ukraine. The meetings came after Putin and Kim made a deal back in summer

If such activities that world media talks about are happening‚ they follow international law

Seoul thinks its a big problem: NK soldiers could learn modern war tricks and get new tech from Russia. They might use this knowledge to make better missiles and spy stuff. Plus theres another issue — language problems are making it hard for NK troops to join the fight

• 13 thousand boxes of weapons went from NK to Russia since last year
• NK gave Russia lots of stuff: bullets rockets and missiles
• Pentagon saw NK soldiers training in east Russia

South Korean defense experts think NK soldiers might have big problems in Ukraine because they dont know how to deal with drones in modern combat