North Korean missile unit deploys to western Russia for Ukraine strikes, Kyiv says
By Tom Balmforth
LONDON, Aug 5 (Reuters) - A North Korean missile unit has begun moving into western Russia and could be assigned up to 120 ballistic missiles and six launchers for strikes against Ukraine, an official at Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said.
Ukraine is critically short of advanced air defenses, and Moscow has sought to exploit that gap by relying more on ballistic missiles, which are especially difficult to intercept. The deployment of North Korean missile forces would take the already extensive military cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang to a new level.
Andrii Cherniak of Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence said Russia planned to base the unit, comprising around 90 North Korean personnel, in the western Russian region of Voronezh, within its 112nd Missile Brigade.
A source familiar with the issue told Reuters that the United States is aware of the North Korean deployment. The CIA declined to comment, and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
North Korea has sent a new batch of 40 KN-23 and KN-24 missiles, along with personnel, to Russia, Cherniak said. The final configuration of the deployment and the overall number of missiles will be settled at top-level talks next month, he said. Moscow expects the deployment to involve 120 North Korean ballistic missiles and six launchers.
It was not clear what precise role the North Korean personnel would play in Russian missile operations. The deployment described by Cherniak appears to coincide with Russia last week firing its first two North Korean missiles at Ukraine since last August.
Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a Philadelphia-based think tank, said the North Korean resources posed a significant threat to Kyiv. “Ballistic missile defense is one of Ukraine’s greatest vulnerabilities, so any increase in the quantities of ballistic missiles they face will pose a greater challenge,” he said.
Lee added that a major concern for Ukraine would be the state of its air defenses this winter, when Russia could again target the power grid with heavy attacks as it has in previous winters.
Cherniak said his assertions were based on intelligence that could not be disclosed because of the sensitivities involved. The Russian Defense Ministry and North Korea’s embassy at the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to written requests for comment.
North Korea has emerged as a close ally of Russia since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and the two countries signed a mutual defense pact in 2024. Pyongyang has supplied millions of artillery shells to Russia’s war effort and sent 14,000 troops to Russia’s Kursk region in 2024 to help repel a Ukrainian ground incursion, Ukrainian officials say.
Last week, Ukrainian authorities said a North Korean missile flattened a residential home in the central Ukrainian village of Radushne, killing at least five members of the same family. Cherniak said that strike was the first recorded use of a North Korean ballistic missile since August 2025 and drew from the new batch of 40 missiles, confirming earlier Reuters reporting.
North Korea’s KN-23 and KN-24 missiles have a greater range and larger payload than Russia’s equivalent Iskander, but are much less accurate and have been linked to strikes with high civilian death tolls, Ukrainian military sources say. The use of KN-23/24 missiles fits a pattern in which Russia has tried to employ more ballistic missiles such as its Iskander 9M723, which can only be stopped by U.S.-made Patriot air defense systems.
Russia began firing KN-23 and KN-24 missiles at Ukraine toward the end of 2023. North Korea supplied 150 of those missiles between late 2023 and August 2025, according to Cherniak.
Cherniak also said around 9,500 North Korean troops were in Russia’s Kursk region, which borders Ukraine, but that they were not currently directly involved in military operations against Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said last month that the Kremlin wanted North Korea to send another 30,000 troops, and that Russia was preparing to receive them in the Voronezh region.
(Reporting by Tom Balmforth; additional reporting by Jonathan Landay in Washington. Editing by Kevin Liffey and Sanjeev Miglani)