Earlier, Moscow and Pyongyang agreed to send 6 thousand military from the DPRK to the Kursk region of the Russian Federation. The North Koreans will allegedly participate in the restoration of this region, said the Secretary of the Council of People's Commissars of the Russian Federation Sergey Shoigu. According to him, we are talking about allegedly 1 thousand sappers for cleansing the territory, as well as 5 thousand military builders to restore destroyed infrastructure facilities
However, ISW suggested that these military can be used for a different purpose.
The fact that the next batch of fighters from North Korea may arrive in Russia according to the new scheme of “labor migrants”, said Kirill Budanov, head of the Main Intelligence Department of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.
Analysts have already recorded the presence of the military DPRK and “technical advisers” near Donetsk and Mariupol, so in the future the Russian Federation can send a new party of the North Koreans there.
Context
Back in 2022, when Russian invaders invaded Ukraine full -scale, the DPRK began to supply the Russian Federation weapons. In 2024, Moscow and Pyongyang signed an agreement providing for mutual military assistance in case of aggression. Since October 2024, the North Korean troops take part in the war against Ukraine on the side of the Russian Federation. According to the Ukrainian side, 12 thousand military arrived from the DPRK, as of the beginning of 2025, 3.8 thousand of them were killed or wounded.
Budanov said that in 2025 Pyongyang plans to transfer to Moscow at least 150 KN-23 ballistic missiles, as well as artillery shells, howitzers and MLRS.
Reuters sources in Ukrainian intelligence said that without The help of the DPRK of the Russian Federation would not be able to wage war against Ukraine as actively as it is now.
On June 15, the British Ministry of Defense reported that about half of the DPRK military, whom Russia attracted to the war against Ukraine in the Kursk region of the Russian Federation, was allegedly killed, wounded or missing.
