Zelenskyy warns of major North Korean troop surge to support Russia

North Korea is preparing to send another 30,000 troops to Russia in support of its war against Ukraine, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

That figure is more than twice the number of North Koreans believed to now be serving alongside Russian forces, based on media reports.

Zelenskyy — in an X post summarizing his nightly video address on Saturday — wrote that Russia wants more North Korean troops and has been preparing the Voronezh region — 289 miles south of Moscow — to receive additional manpower since June.

Pyongyang is also planning to transfer more ballistic missile launchers to its ally, he said.

“This is a threat not only to Ukraine,” Zelenskyy warned. “Russia is helping North Korea learn how to wage war, improve its weapons, and gain real combat experience in using them.”

As such, the two countries’ actions are “a threat to everyone in Asia who is within range of North Korean missiles,” he added.

In a subsequent post, Zelenskyy wrote that 221,000 people have joined the Russian armed forces in the past seven months. Russia suffered nearly 225,500 casualties during that period, he said.

Ukraine’s comprehensive intelligence reports on Russia’s fall plans show Putin is “preparing the conditions for expanding mobilization,” he wrote.

Zelenskyy’s comments follow North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui’s visit to Moscow this month.

Choe met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on July 19, when the two agreed to further strengthen their alliance under the allies’ comprehensive strategic partnership treaty, North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency said Tuesday.

Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a mutual defense pact in June 2024, committing both countries to provide immediate military assistance if either is attacked.

The exact number of North Korean troops that Kim has sent to Russia so far remains unclear.

Pyongyang dispatched about 1,500 special forces troops to Vladivostok between Oct. 8 and Oct. 13, with additional deployments to follow, according to a news release from South Korea’s National Intelligence Service on Oct. 18, 2024.

Six days after the release was published, Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence agency said the number of North Korean troops deployed to Russia had reached 12,000, including 500 officers.

Somewhere between 14,000 and 14,100 North Koreans are stationed in Russia, with 9,500 troops deployed as active combatants, NK News reported May 4, citing Kyiv’s military intelligence.

More than 2,250 North Korean troops have been killed in the war, with more than 4,800 wounded, according to an April 29 report by Ukrainian news agency Interfax-Ukraine, citing Brig. Gen. Dmytro Usov, secretary of Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War.