Zelenskyy Says Russia Preparing to Deploy Up to 50,000 North Korean Troops, Points to New Missile Unit

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday that Russia is preparing to station more North Korean troops on its territory and has already received additional ballistic missiles from Pyongyang, according to Euronews. "This is the first time they cannot wage war without supplements from North Korea," he said in his nightly address, referring to Russian forces.

Zelenskyy did not present evidence or a timeframe for the claim. He did use the moment to press Japan and South Korea for more air-defense aid, arguing North Korea's military is growing stronger from combat experience gained helping Russia.

The numbers Zelenskyy has floated have moved fast. In July, Stars and Stripes reported Zelenskyy said Russia wanted 30,000 more North Korean troops and had been preparing facilities in the Voronezh region, about 289 miles south of Moscow, since June. By the weekend before this week's remarks, according to The Guardian, that figure had grown to as many as 50,000. Zelenskyy has not explained how he arrived at either number, and neither Euronews nor The Guardian could independently verify the figures.

A Ukrainian military intelligence official told Reuters, as reported by Defense News, that a North Korean missile unit has begun deploying personnel and equipment to western Russia. That unit is about 90 personnel, could be equipped with up to 120 ballistic missiles and six launchers, and is expected to base out of Voronezh. The official said 40 North Korean missiles have already been supplied, with at least two fired at Ukraine in a deadly strike last week. A source told Reuters the United States is aware of the deployment.

That 90-person missile unit is a specific, attributed number. The 30,000-to-50,000 troop figure is not. Those are two very different claims, and conflating them overstates what's actually confirmed.

What's already documented

North Korea's involvement in this war isn't in dispute. Pyongyang sent roughly 14,000 to 15,000 soldiers to Russia's Kursk region starting in October 2024, according to Ukrainian and South Korean estimates cited by Defense News. Russia and North Korea jointly confirmed in April 2025 that those troops had fought Ukrainian forces there. South Korea's National Intelligence Service told lawmakers last year that about 600 North Korean troops were killed in that fighting, with roughly 4,700 total casualties including wounded, and that about 2,000 injured soldiers were repatriated by air or train between January and March.

Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of prisoners has put the death toll higher, at more than 2,250 killed and 4,800 wounded, according to an April report from Interfax-Ukraine citing Brig. Gen. Dmytro Usov. The exact figures vary by source, which is itself a reminder that casualty counts in this war are estimates, not audited totals.

North Korea has also been supplying Russia with ammunition well beyond troops. Reuters and the UK-based Open Source Centre traced four Russian-flagged cargo ships making 64 voyages to North Korea's Rajin port between September 2023 and March 2025, carrying nearly 16,000 containers of ammunition, according to Defense News. Millions of artillery and mortar rounds, long-range artillery and multiple-launch rocket systems have flowed from Pyongyang to Moscow as part of the arrangement, per Ukrainian and independent assessments cited by The Guardian.

The missile threat Ukraine says is coming

Ukraine's drone forces commander, Robert "Magyar" Brovdi, told the Associated Press, as reported by Euronews, that Russia can currently fire a simultaneous salvo of 77 ballistic missiles and is working to nearly triple that to 200. "Even if they only manage half of that, it will all be flying at us," he said. Brovdi argues the only real countermeasure is striking the factories that build the missiles, which he says is the logic behind Ukraine's deep strikes into Russian territory since its offensive began in late June.

That offensive has hit rail bridges, oil depots and power infrastructure and destroyed more than 300 Russian air-defense assets, according to Brovdi's account to the AP. He said his forces are operating at only 14% of what full capacity would require, blaming slow disbursement of pledged Western funding rather than Ukrainian production limits.

Ukraine's own vulnerability is real and specific: it relies on US-made Patriot systems as its only weapon capable of shooting down ballistic missiles, and there's a documented shortage of Patriot interceptors, with what Euronews describes as mixed signals from Washington on licensing more.

Zelenskyy has a track record of leading with large, round numbers. Thirty thousand in July became 50,000 within weeks, without releasing the underlying intelligence. That doesn't mean the claim is false. Ukraine's government has repeatedly turned out to be right about North Korean deployments before official confirmation came from Moscow or Pyongyang. But the 50,000 figure, as of this week, is an assertion from one government, not a documented fact like the 90-person missile unit Reuters separately confirmed. Whether South Korea and Japan respond to Zelenskyy's appeal for more air-defense systems is the next thing to watch.