Washington and Seoul have warned of North Korea's close military ties with Moscow. South Korea's spy agency said on Friday that North Korea has shipped 1,500 special forces troops to Russia's Far East for training and acclimatizing at local military bases and will likely be deployed for combat in the war in Ukraine.

The United States, South Korea, Japan and eight other countries formed a new multilateral team to monitor and report on violations of U.N. sanctions on North Korea, the countries said in a joint statement.

North Korea's foreign minister called a newly-created sanctions monitoring team of her country's nuclear weapons programme 'illegal and illegitimate' on Sunday.View on euronews