North Korea will send 150 more KN-23 short-range ballistic missiles to Russia in 2025. Last year, 148 were sent.
This was stated by the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Kyrylo Budanov, in an interview with The War Zone.
He said that North Korea would also send additional support to the Kursk region of the Russian Federation in the form of missile and artillery troops. He did not specify either the approximate number or the timing. The New York Times, citing an unnamed senior American official, wrote on January 22 that North Korea would send reinforcements to Russia in two months.
Budanov stressed that Ukraine does not expect to see "many new ground forces."
Over the past three months, North Korea has supplied Russia with nearly 120 170mm M1989 Koksan self-propelled artillery mounts and 120 240mm M-1991 multiple launch rocket systems. The head of the GUR expects the DPRK to supply Russia with at least the same number of these weapons, as they have “many such systems.”
Participation of the DPRK military in the war in Ukraine
Ukrainian intelligence reported on October 24, 2024, that the first soldiers from the DPRK had already arrived at the front — in the Kursk region. There are approximately 12,000 soldiers, including 500 officers and three generals.
According to sources in the American newspaper The New York Times, Russia has assembled a group of 50,000 soldiers for an offensive in the Kursk region. The North Koreans are being trained in artillery strikes, basic infantry tactics and, most importantly, trench clearing, American officials say. This means that at least some of the North Korean soldiers will be used in frontal attacks on Ukrainian positions.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that more than 3,000 soldiers from the DPRK have already been killed or wounded. South Korean intelligence believes that 300 soldiers have been killed in the war and about 2,700 have been wounded.
Zelensky first reported on December 27, 2024, that the Defense Forces had captured North Korean soldiers, but then they died of wounds. The North Korean soldiers were captured for the second time in January. Ukraine is ready to exchange them for its own soldiers.