North Korea to deploy up to 50,000 troops onto Russian territory, Zelenskyy says
Ukraine's president says North Korea has decided to send up to 50,000 troops onto Russian soil, up sharply from his 30,000 estimate weeks earlier. Kyiv says it has recovered North Korean missiles on its own territory, and Ukrainian intelligence told Reuters a North Korean missile
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says North Korea has decided to deploy up to 50,000 troops onto Russian territory, a sharp jump from his estimate of 30,000 just weeks earlier. He says the scale of North Korean involvement has grown from hundreds of personnel to thousands, and now tens of thousands. Kyiv says it has recovered North Korean missiles inside Ukraine. Ukrainian military intelligence told Reuters this month that a North Korean missile unit has begun moving into western Russia, a force that could eventually field 120 ballistic missiles and six launchers aimed at Ukrainian cities. North Korea already sent about 14,000 soldiers to Russia's Kursk region in 2024. Zelenskyy is pressing South Korea for air defense help as the North Korea-Russia military partnership deepens under their 2024 mutual defense treaty.