North Korea has collected billions of dollars in aid to Russia, South Korean intelligence estimates. An amount comparable to the GDP of the country

South Korean intelligence services estimate that Pyongyang has earned $13 billion over the past three years from providing military assistance to Russia in the Ukraine war, Nikkei Asia reported Monday, as cited by The Moscow Times.

If confirmed, the amount represents a major financial windfall for North Korea, which does not publish statistics on the matter. UN estimates put the communist country's gross domestic product at $17.2 billion, while South Korea's central bank put it at $25.3 billion.

In exchange for providing weapons and troops, Pyongyang is believed to have received foreign currency, energy resources and critical military technology, which has helped the regime evade international sanctions.

Russia and North Korea have intensified relations in the wake of the war in Ukraine, and in 2024 they signed a mutual defense treaty that obliges them to provide military support if either is attacked.

Over $7 billion in shipments in 2025 alone

The Institute for National Security Strategy, a government-funded think tank in Seoul, estimates that Russia received between $7 billion and $13.8 billion in North Korean artillery deliveries of rockets, shells and short-range ballistic missiles in 2025 alone.

It is also estimated that Russia has paid more than $600 million for the deployment of North Korean troops since the end of 2024, since the war against Ukraine. The move followed a surprise incursion by Ukrainian forces into Kursk, Russia's southwestern province, in August 2024.

In February, a South Korean lawmaker visiting Ukraine said there were still about 10,000 North Korean special forces troops, 10,000 engineers and “hundreds” of drone operators in the battle zone.

South Korean intelligence estimated that as many as 6,000 North Korean soldiers had been killed or wounded by mid-February.