Planet Labs PBC, a satellite imagining and data analytics company, released photos taken on Wednesday showing at least two trenches are under development with utility vehicles stationed nearby.

The trenches appear to cut across roads and railroads leading toward the Demilitarized Zone that separates the two Koreas.

One trench is being dug on the peninsula’s east coast near a border gate to the DMZ. The other is on the west coast, approximately 1 mile from South Korea’s Dorasan Station.

Dorasan Station has previously served as an inter-Korean railway depot during periods of greater cooperation between the countries. Its continued upkeep symbolizes hope for reunification.

The project is likely part of North Korea’s recent decision to cut its diplomatic and cultural ties with South Korea, which it has designated in its constitution as a “hostile state” in response to alleged drone incursions.

The regime blew up its own roads leading into South Korea earlier this month as a symbol of its commitment to ending inter-Korean relations.

“It is deplorable that North Korea is repeatedly conducting such regressive behavior,” South Korean Unification Ministry spokesman Koo Byoung-sam said following the detonation.

At the same time North Korea is taking a more aggressive posture domestically, it is becoming entangled in a foreign conflict for the first time in decades.

South Korea, the United States, the United Nations, and Ukraine have all reported intelligence that thousands of North Korean soldiers have been transported into Russian territory in recent weeks.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Wednesday that these troops, dressed in Russian uniforms and carrying Russian weapons, are likely to be deployed in combat against Ukraine soon.