Zelenskiy: Russia Wants 30,000 More North Korean Troops in Ukraine

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned Saturday that Russia is seeking to bring an additional 30,000 North Korean troops into the conflict in Ukraine, according to Reuters. If accurate, the figure would significantly expand a military partnership that has already placed thousands of North Korean soldiers on European battlefields.

Zelenskiy made the statement amid continued front-line fighting and fresh long-range strikes in both directions. His office did not immediately detail the intelligence basis for the estimate, but the Ukrainian president has consistently used public warnings about troop buildups to press Western allies for increased military support.

A Partnership That Has Grown Steadily

North Korea’s involvement in Russia’s war against Ukraine has expanded in stages. Pyongyang first supplied artillery ammunition, then ballistic missiles — some of which Ukraine’s military attributed to strikes on its cities — and eventually combat soldiers, whose presence was publicly confirmed by South Korean and American officials earlier this year.

A deployment of 30,000 additional troops would roughly double the scale of North Korea’s estimated ground force commitment in Russia. Moscow and Pyongyang have not publicly confirmed troop numbers, but U.S. and allied intelligence assessments have placed existing North Korean troop levels in the tens of thousands, largely concentrated in the Kursk region.

The troop expansion warning also arrives as Kim Jong Un appears to be broadening North Korea’s external intelligence operations. The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday that Kim is upgrading his spy network, a parallel investment in projecting power abroad even as North Korean ground forces gain live combat experience in Ukraine.

The Day’s Fighting

Zelenskiy’s warning came on a day of continued strikes. Ukraine hit a Siberian refinery Saturday, extending Kyiv’s long-range strike campaign deeper into Russian territory, France 24 reported. In the same report, Kazakhstan’s president publicly told Putin the war should end — a notable statement from Moscow’s closest regional partner.

At least 11 people were killed Saturday in strikes on both sides, including a Russian attack on a tourist camp, Al Jazeera reported. For prior coverage of this week’s Russian strikes on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, see our report on the tourist camp attack and Siberia refinery strike.

Why Russia Needs North Korean Manpower

Russia’s apparent demand for additional North Korean troops reflects sustained pressure on Moscow’s ability to man a front line that stretches for hundreds of miles. The war has consumed enormous numbers of soldiers over more than two years of fighting, and Russia’s recruitment — including from prisons, Central Asia, and overseas — has faced growing constraints.

North Korean soldiers offer advantages that volunteers and conscripts do not: unit cohesion, prior military training, and a government with both the willingness and the capacity to absorb casualties without domestic political accountability. Ukrainian commanders have noted that North Korean troops have suffered severe losses in frontal assaults in certain engagements while continuing to press attacks.

The arrangement benefits Pyongyang as well. North Korean soldiers accumulate live combat experience — including exposure to modern drone warfare, electronic warfare, and combined-arms operations at a scale unmatched in any prior conflict — that flows back to Kim’s military planners. Defense analysts have argued this battlefield learning is as strategically valuable to North Korea as the financial payments and technology transfers it receives from Moscow in return.

For more on North Korea’s broader military buildup, see our analysis of Pyongyang’s nuclear and naval expansion.

Western Leverage Remains Limited

Washington has sanctioned North Korea over its arms exports to Russia and warned of consequences for the partnership. Enforcement has been limited, and the flow of materiel — and now soldiers — has continued regardless. Ukraine has repeatedly asked its Western partners to impose secondary sanctions on entities facilitating the Russia-North Korea military relationship, with limited success.

A significant expansion of North Korean forces would add fresh urgency to those requests. It would also complicate any path to negotiations. With a third government — Pyongyang — holding an active stake in battlefield outcomes, the incentive structure for any ceasefire becomes substantially more complex.

Zelenskiy’s 30,000-troop estimate has not been independently confirmed. Reuters attributed the statement directly to the Ukrainian president, and his office had not walked it back as of publication. The figure is consistent with the trajectory of a partnership that has already exceeded most early projections of how far North Korea would commit.

For the broader context of this week’s front-line developments, see our coverage of Russian ballistic missile strikes on Kyiv.