South Korean intelligence has found that North Korea has dispatched 12,000 troops including special operation forces to support Russia’s war against Ukraine, news reports said Friday, a development that could bring a third country into the war and intensify a standoff between North Korea and the West.

North Korea has shipped 1,500 special forces troops to Russia’s far east for training and will likely be deployed for combat in the war in Ukraine, South Korea’s spy agency said.

North Korea blew up the northern parts of inter-Korean roads no longer in use on Tuesday, South Korea said, as tensions between the two keep rising.