Overview

• South Korea’s National Intelligence Service reports Pyongyang will send 1,000 sappers and 5,000 military construction workers to Russia’s Kursk region as early as July or August 2025
• This deployment follows earlier dispatches of about 11,000 troops in October 2024 and an additional 4,000 personnel in February 2025
• North Korea has provided Russia with over 10 million artillery shells, missiles and long-range rockets in exchange for air defence systems, electronic jamming equipment and rocket and missile technology know-how
• Analysts warn the move supports Russia’s potential summer offensive in Ukraine and is grounded in a mutual defence treaty signed by Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin in June 2024
• South Korean lawmakers say roughly 600 North Korean soldiers have been killed and thousands more wounded while fighting alongside Russian forces