On Putin's altar: North Korea's ruler continues to sacrifice his people

A new wave of North Korean soldiers, already numbering about 8,500 in Russia, including a dedicated drone unit that may attack targets inside Ukraine, will arrive soon, according to a senior official in Ukrainian intelligence, as reported by CNN.

North Korea, which signed a mutual defense treaty with Russia about two years ago, has been sending soldiers to assist Moscow's military operations since the end of 2024. According to the Deputy Chief of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine, General Vadym Skibitsky, Pyongyang may be asked to contribute up to 50,000 additional soldiers when President Vladimir Putin meets with his counterpart Kim Jong Un in September.

Such a move would represent a significant expansion of military cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang and comes at a time when Ukraine is suffering from a painful shortage of air defense systems. Skibitsky noted that the North Korean soldiers already deployed on the ground are primarily in Russia's Kursk region and include about a thousand engineers and deminers. At the same time, the force includes 400 drone operators, many of whom gained experience in previous North Korean deployments, and whose vehicles are expected to be used both for intelligence gathering and for attacking targets inside Ukraine.

North Korea's deepening ties with Russia are worrying many in NATO, especially after President Donald Trump announced that military exercises with South Korea would be reduced so as not to provoke Kim Jong Un. On the other hand, Kim's sister, Kim Yo Jong, denied claims that tens of thousands of additional North Koreans would soon join Russia's war effort, calling them a "baseless fabricated scenario."

According to CNN and assessments in Ukraine, the soldiers who will be sent to Russia will not fight directly on Ukrainian soil but will reinforce the Russian rear, which will free up additional Russian forces for attacks on the front. To date, about 25,000 North Koreans have already been deployed or have served rotations in the Russian army, with about 10,000 of them having been wounded or killed after using suicidal tactics of mass assaults on Ukrainian positions.

Pyongyang's assistance is not limited to manpower. Skibitsky emphasized that North Korea is providing significant assistance in missile technology. Hundreds of ballistic missiles have been supplied to Moscow and are proving increasingly difficult for Kyiv to intercept, while Ukraine's stock of Patriot interceptors has almost completely run out. More modern versions of the missiles are capable of reaching a range of about 800 km, although they sometimes deviate from the target by 15 to 19 km. In exchange for the supply of manpower and ammunition, North Korea demanded the advanced S-400 air defense system and has already received a Pantsir-S1 surface-to-air missile launcher.