Volodymyr Zelensky, the President of Ukraine, has claimed that between 30,000 and 50,000 North Korean soldiers are set to be deployed on Russian soil to fight alongside Russian forces, a figure he says is higher than his previous estimate from July.<\/p>\n
Zelensky wrote on the social media platform X that the decision to send these troops has been made but did not provide details about the source of his information. He also alleged that some missiles manufactured in North Korea have been found in Ukrainian territory, although he did not specify their exact locations.<\/p>\n
The Ukrainian president stated that Pyongyang, by participating in the war, is gaining experience in “modern warfare” while receiving permissions and military equipment from Russia. According to him, this collaboration could strengthen North Korea’s military capacity.<\/p>\n
Referring to Ukraine’s shortage of advanced air defense systems, Zelensky called on South Korea to deepen cooperation with Kyiv. He emphasized that Ukraine is ready to work on agreements related to drones and other defense areas, noting that diplomats from both countries remain in contact.<\/p>\n
In June 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a comprehensive strategic cooperation pact in Pyongyang, which includes clauses on mutual assistance in the event of foreign aggression. According to the report, North Korea considers troop deployment under this agreement.<\/p>\n
Reuters reported that North Korea sent around 14,000 soldiers to the Kursk region of Russia in 2024, playing a role in repelling Ukrainian attacks. Additionally, a Ukrainian military intelligence official stated this month that a North Korean missile unit has been stationed in western Russia and may be equipped with 120 ballistic missiles and six launchers.<\/p>\n
Ukraine\u2019s warnings about expanding military cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang come amid a serious shortage of air defense systems in Ukraine, while Russia has increased ballistic missile attacks in recent months\u2014missiles that are more difficult to intercept.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Zelensky warns that up to 50,000 North Korean troops could be deployed in Russia to fight alongside its forces, escalating military cooperation amid ongoing conflict.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19385,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-important-news","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}