North Korea’s latest troop deployment to Russia includes a dedicated drone unit capable of striking targets inside Ukraine, a shift Ukrainian intelligence says marks Pyongyang’s move away from the costly mass-infantry tactics it relied on earlier in the war.
Major General Vadym Skibitskiy, deputy head of Ukrainian Defense Intelligence, told CNN that North Korea now has about 8,500 troops in Russia, including roughly 400 drone operators and 1,000 engineers and deminers. These troops are taking on static rear-security, demining, and surveillance duties in Russia’s Kursk region rather than fighting directly inside Ukraine, freeing up Russian combat brigades for frontline offensives in the east.
The shift follows North Korea’s costly initial deployment, which began in October 2024 when roughly 10,000 troops suffered heavy losses using mass assaults to help repel a Ukrainian incursion into Kursk. Wounded soldiers who returned home have since trained colleagues in drone warfare, CNN reported, suggesting the front has doubled as a training ground for Pyongyang’s own military modernization. An estimated 25,000 North Korean troops have been deployed or rotated through Russia in total, and Putin may ask for up to 50,000 more when he meets Kim Jong Un in September. Kim Yo Jong, Kim Jong Un’s sister, has dismissed that figure as a “groundless self-fabricated scenario.”
North Korea’s support extends to missile technology. Pyongyang has sent at least 150 KN-23 or KN-24 ballistic missiles for use in Ukraine, with 120 more promised, though only 40 have reportedly been delivered so far. Two are suspected to have been used in a July 30 strike on Radushne, in Ukraine’s Dnipro region, that killed four children from one family.
In exchange for troops and munitions, North Korea has asked Russia for its S-400 air defense system and has already received a Pantsir-1 launcher, according to Skibitskiy, a transaction that suggests Pyongyang’s wartime support is helping fund its own military recapitalization.
