Zelenskyy says Russia plans to deploy up to 50,000 North Korean troops

Up to 50,000 North Korean troops may be deployed to Russia to support its war against Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, raising his earlier estimate from July. Ukrainian officials say they have found North Korean missiles on Ukrainian territory, and a Ukrainian military intelligence official told Reuters that a North Korean missile unit has begun deploying personnel and equipment to western Russia.

According to The Guardian’s war briefing, Kyiv frames the reported deployment as a two-way transaction: North Korea supplies manpower and weapons, and gets exposure to modern warfare and access to Russian military tools and production know-how. Zelenskyy argued that Pyongyang would “build experience” while receiving licenses and equipment from Moscow, a claim that fits the pattern of North Korean shipments of artillery and mortar rounds that Ukrainian and independent assessments say have already reached Russia. Russian milbloggers and troops have complained that some of the ammunition is of dangerously low quality, but volume matters when a war is measured in daily shell expenditure and replacement rates.

The reported missile unit deployment underlines how the relationship can shift from crates of munitions to operational integration. Reuters’ account, cited by The Guardian, described a unit that could be equipped with ballistic missiles and launchers intended for strikes against Ukraine. That kind of presence in western Russia would not just expand Russia’s firing options; it would also allow North Korean crews to learn under live conditions what works against Western-supplied air defences and what does not.

For Moscow, foreign troops and foreign missiles solve a narrow problem: maintaining pressure while domestic mobilisation remains politically costly and defence production faces bottlenecks. For Pyongyang, the war offers something harder to buy with cash—battlefield feedback, training, and the chance to test systems against a technologically capable opponent. Both sides can keep the arrangement deniable in detail while still letting the other party pay part of the bill.

The same briefing describes Ukraine’s acute shortage of high-end air defence interceptors, a constraint Russia has tried to exploit by increasing the use of ballistic missiles. Zelenskyy has publicly sought deeper cooperation with South Korea, particularly on air defence, and said Ukraine is ready to work on drone deals and other areas. In parallel, US congressional documents cited by The Guardian describe a prospective Turkish sale of American-origin ATACMS missiles and other munitions to Ukraine, a transaction that would still require US approval for resale.

On the ground, the war continues to be counted in apartment blocks and power lines. The Guardian reported Russian strikes that Ukrainian officials said killed and injured civilians in Kharkiv, damaged the power grid and port infrastructure in Odesa, and wounded people near energy infrastructure in Pavlohrad.

Zelenskyy is now publicly attaching a number—50,000—to a foreign contingent that neither Moscow nor Pyongyang has confirmed. If North Korean units are already unpacking equipment in western Russia, the paperwork may be the last thing to arrive.