Overview

• South Korea’s National Intelligence Service forecasts that Pyongyang will dispatch 6,000 additional personnel—5,000 military construction workers and 1,000 sappers—to Russia’s Kursk region this summer.
• North Korea initiated recruitment for the new deployment after a June meeting between leader Kim Jong Un and Russia’s Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu.
• Since late 2023, Pyongyang has supplied Moscow with over 10 million artillery shells, missiles and long-range weapons to bolster Russia’s offensive in Ukraine.
• Under a 2024 mutual defense pact, Russia has provided North Korea with air defense systems, electronic jamming equipment and expertise in rocket engines, drones and missile guidance.
• Moscow now holds about 81 percent of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Luhansk, and Ukrainian intelligence warns Russia may launch a large-scale summer assault.