North Korea and Russia: What the Alliance Has Actually Changed in Ukraine
- The trade is documented in a UN Security Council document, not just in claims by the combatants. Eleven governments jointly filed it as S/2025/340: artillery, ballistic missiles and combat vehicles moving to Russia by sea, air and rail, and air defence systems moving back.
- Over 11,000 North Korean troops have been deployed to Russia since October 2024, and both governments publicly acknowledged the deployment in April 2025 after months of denial.
- The return flow is the part that outlasts the war: air defence systems, refined petroleum far above the UN cap, working banking channels, Russian training, and first-hand experience of a modern war.
- Casualty estimates diverge by source. South Korea’s intelligence service puts North Korean losses at about 6,000 killed or wounded; Ukrainian military intelligence claims more than 7,000. One of those is a party to the war.
In April 2025, Moscow and Pyongyang stopped denying it. Both governments publicly confirmed that North Korean soldiers were fighting for Russia — something eleven other governments had by then already documented in a filing to the UN Security Council.
The question of what that partnership has actually changed in Ukraine has a documented part, an assessed part and a claimed part, and they are worth keeping separate.
What has North Korea actually sent Russia?
Ammunition, missiles, artillery and men — by sea, air and rail.
The joint letter that eleven governments filed with the Security Council on 29 May 2025 lists transfers of arms and related materiel including artillery, ballistic missiles and combat vehicles from North Korea to Russia for use in the war.
The quantities reported from the body of that report:
| What | Quantity | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Artillery and rocket ammunition | about 9 million rounds, across 49 shipments | 2024 |
| Ballistic missiles | at least 100 | 2024 |
| Heavy artillery | more than 200 pieces | 2024 |
| Containers of munitions and equipment | more than 20,000 | since September 2023 |
The heavy artillery reported includes 170mm self-propelled guns and 240mm multiple rocket launchers — systems that fit Russian ammunition logistics rather than requiring a new supply chain.
On what the missiles were used for, the UN filing is direct: they were used against Ukrainian cities, including targeted strikes against critical civilian infrastructure.
One number is disputed in an instructive direction. South Korean intelligence has estimated as many as 12 million rounds of 152mm ammunition — a larger figure than the MSMT’s 9 million, but counting a different thing over a different period. Neither figure is a correction of the other.
What has Russia sent back?
This is the half that gets less coverage and matters longer. From the same UN filing:
| What Russia provided | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Air defence systems | Hardens North Korea against exactly the kind of strike it is now helping Russia deliver |
| Refined petroleum | Supplied “far exceed[ing]” the annual Security Council cap |
| Correspondent banking relations | Keeps a sanctioned state connected to the financial system |
| Training of North Korean troops | By Russian forces, in Russia |
South Korean assessments add detail the UN letter does not: long-range surface-to-air missiles and radars, at least one Pantsir-S1 short-range system, and electronic warfare equipment. Seoul has also assessed Russian help with satellite and space technology, and possible assistance on air-to-air missiles.
The UN filing goes further than hardware. It says the arrangement gave North Korea the resources to fund its military programmes and further develop its ballistic missile programmes — which are themselves banned under multiple Security Council resolutions — and to gain first-hand experience in modern warfare.
That last item cannot be sanctioned, seized or returned.
How many North Korean soldiers are there, and how many have been killed?
Over 11,000 deployed since October 2024, per the UN filing. More were sent in early 2025.
South Korean intelligence put roughly 11,000 in Kursk Oblast at the start of 2026 — about 10,000 combat troops and 1,000 engineers. Around 1,100 who returned home in December 2025 were assessed as likely to go back.
On losses, the two available figures do not agree, and the difference is about who is counting:
| Source | Estimate | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| South Korea’s NIS | about 6,000 killed or wounded | third-party state intelligence |
| Ukraine’s HUR | more than 7,000 casualties | a party to the war |
Neither is independently verifiable, and neither supports a casualty rate. The 11,000 figure is a standing deployment with rotation in and out; the cumulative number sent has not been published, so there is no denominator to divide by. What both figures do establish is that the losses are large against a force of that order.
Has it actually changed the fighting?
In two documented ways, and one that cannot be established from open sources.
Documented: North Korean ballistic missiles have been fired into Ukrainian cities. The UN filing states this plainly, naming strikes on critical civilian infrastructure. Whatever else is arguable, those are weapons that would not otherwise have existed in Russia’s inventory.
Documented: the ammunition. Russia’s war is an artillery war, and roughly nine million rounds in a single year is not a marginal contribution to it. Sustaining a rate of fire is the thing Russia’s own industry has struggled with, and this filled part of that gap.
Not established: whether North Korean infantry changed any outcome. They were used in Kursk, an operation Russia has since concluded. Beyond that, claims about their battlefield performance come almost entirely from the two sides fighting them or alongside them, and the two accounts do not agree. This article does not adjudicate that, because the evidence available in public does not.
A detail that cuts against the simplest version of the story: South Korean intelligence assessed that North Korean troops had been absent from the front since mid-January 2026. A force can be present in a country without being committed to a battle.
What does North Korea keep after the war ends?
Money, hardware, technology and experience — and none of it reverses when the shooting stops.
Read the return list again as a list of permanent acquisitions rather than payments. Air defences stay installed. Petroleum above the cap has already been burned, but the precedent that the cap can be ignored persists. Banking channels, once re-established, are hard to close. Training and combat experience live in the officer corps.
The UN filing’s own conclusion on the direction of travel is worth stating: the treaty, the frequency of high-level exchanges since 2024, the extra troops in early 2025 and the public acknowledgement in April 2025 together suggest both states intend to continue and deepen the relationship.
The legal frame is the Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, signed in Pyongyang on 18 June 2024 and in force from 4 December 2024. Its Article 4 commits each party to provide military assistance if the other is attacked. It is of unlimited duration, and it is the most substantial defence agreement between the two since 1961.
Where does it stand in 2026?
Deeper, and less deniable than it was.
- The volume has not fallen. South Korean intelligence assessed in March 2026 that North Korean military shipments to Russia had increased.
- The deployment continues, at roughly the same order of magnitude, with rotation home and back.
- The monitoring has narrowed. The MSMT’s second report, in October 2025, covered North Korean cyber operations and IT workers rather than the arms trade — so the most recent detailed public accounting of the military relationship remains the May 2025 one.
That last point is the honest limitation on everything above. The best documentation of this relationship is more than a year old, because the body that produced it exists only because Russia vetoed the one that came before, and it publishes when it publishes.
For the wider casualty picture on both sides of this war, we have a separate breakdown of Russian and Ukrainian military deaths and what each published figure actually measures.
Sources
Checked on 9 August 2026.
| Source | What it supports here |
|---|---|
| UN Security Council document S/2025/340 — MSMT letter, 29 May 2025 | The categories of transfer in both directions, the air defence systems, the petroleum above the cap, the banking relations, the Russian training, the strikes on civilian infrastructure, the funding of North Korean missile programmes, the “over 11,000 troops since October 2024” figure and the April 2025 acknowledgement |
| US Embassy Seoul — MSMT report on unlawful North Korea-Russia military cooperation | The eleven participating states, and that the MSMT was created after Russia vetoed the renewal of the UN Panel of Experts mandate |
| MSMT — reports index | The publication dates, and that the second report covered cyber and IT workers rather than military cooperation |
| Federal Foreign Office — MSMT joint statement | The 29 May 2025 date and the participating states, independently of the US version |
| CNN — North Korea has sent rockets, missiles and soldiers to Russia | The quantities reported from the body of the MSMT report |
| Kyiv Independent — North Korean troops in Kursk Oblast at the start of 2026 | The 2026 deployment figure and its combat and engineer split |
| Kyiv Independent — North Korean troops absent from the front, Seoul says | The South Korean assessment that the troops left the front line in mid-January |
| Wikipedia — Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership | The signature and ratification dates, entry into force, Article 4 and the comparison with the 1961 treaty |
Casualty figures are attributed in the table above to the bodies that issued them and are not reconciled here, because they are not measuring the same thing over the same period.
How we verified this
The sourcing here is tiered deliberately, because this is a contested information space. The strongest material is the letter that eleven governments — Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Korea, the UK and the US — filed with the UN Security Council on 29 May 2025, circulated as document S/2025/340. Everything sourced to it is described here as documented.
Second tier is a third-party state intelligence service. South Korea’s National Intelligence Service is not neutral, but it is not a belligerent in this war. Its figures are labelled as its assessment.
Third tier is a combatant. Ukraine’s military intelligence directorate has an interest in the numbers being large. Where its figures appear, the article says whose they are and does not present them as established.
Why this monitoring exists at all is part of the story. The MSMT was created in 2024 after Russia vetoed the renewal of the UN Panel of Experts that had previously monitored North Korea sanctions. The body reporting on Russia’s conduct exists because Russia removed the previous one.
Two quantities in wide circulation are not in the part of the UN filing we could read. The figures of roughly 9 million rounds of artillery and rocket ammunition across 49 shipments in 2024, at least 100 ballistic missiles, over 200 pieces of heavy artillery and more than 20,000 containers since September 2023 come from the body of the MSMT report, which is largely presented as imagery. They are consistently reported by several outlets citing that report, and are attributed here to the report rather than quoted from the UN letter.
This article does not forecast the course of the war. It sets out what has been documented, what is assessed and what is claimed, with the dates attached. Where the evidence does not support a conclusion about battlefield effect, the article says so instead of supplying one.