North Korea prepares to send more troops to Russia after suffering casualties, South Korea says

South Korea’s military said Friday it suspects North Korea is preparing to send additional troops to Russia after its soldiers fighting in the Russian-Ukraine war suffered heavy casualties.South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff also assessed in a report distributed to journalists that North Korea is continuing its preparations to test-fire an intercontinental ballistic missile intended to reach the United States.President Donald Trump’s return to the White House may brighten Pyongyang’s prospects for high-level diplomacy with Washington, as he met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un three times during his first term.Many experts say Kim likely thinks his evolving nuclear program and expanding military cooperation with Russian President Vladimir Putin could give him a greater leverage than during his 2018-19 summits with Trump.North Korea has been supplying a vast amount of artillery and other conventional weapons to Russia, and last October it sent about 10,000-12,000 troops to Russia as well, according to US, South Korean and Ukraine intelligences.Seoul, Washington and others worry Russia could in return transfer to North Korea sophisticated weapons technologies that can enhance its nuclear program.North Korean soldiers are considered to be highly disciplined and well-trained, but their lack of combat experiences and unfamiliarity with the largely flat plains that make up most battlefields in the Russian-Ukraine war have made them easy targets for drone and artillery strikes.South Korea’s spy agency said last week that it assessed about 300 North Korean soldiers had died and another 2,700 had been injured.Earlier in January, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky put the number of killed or wounded North Koreans at 4,000, though US estimates were lower at around 1,200.The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said that North Korea is believed to be accelerating preparations to send more troops to Russia, without saying how it reached the assessment.Dee...