North Korea to deploy 50,000 soldiers to Russia, Zelensky claims

North Korea is preparing to send as many as 50,000 soldiers to support Russia's war against Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky claimed, a much bigger deployment than anything Pyongyang had committed thus far. The Ukrainian president said Moscow and Pyongyang had agreed to station between 30,000 and 50,000 North Korean troops on Russian territory, an escalation from earlier deployments that he described as first hundreds and then thousands of men. Neither Russia nor North Korea confirmed any such agreement, and it was not immediately clear how Ukraine had formulated its assessment. "North Koreans appear on the territory of the Russian Federation from time to time," Mr Zelensky said in an interview with the Ukrainian television service United News on Saturday. "At first, we were talking about hundreds, then thousands, and now a decision has been made for 30,000 to 50,000 North Koreans to be deployed on the territory of Russia." Pyongyang is thought to have sent 16,000 soldiers and deminers to Kursk, the Russian region partly seized by Ukrainian forces in 2024, since late that year, along with shipments of ballistic missiles. He had said last month that preparations to receive North Korean troops had been underway since June in Voronezh, a region bordering Ukraine. "North Korea will build up its capabilities in fairly modern warfare, will receive licences from Russia and will receive all kinds of military tools from them. We understand this clearly," he said. Mr Zelensky argued that this made the arrangement a problem for Asia rather than just for Europe, and urged Seoul to work more closely with Kyiv, particularly on air defence, where Ukraine has clear gaps, and on drones.