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North Korea Now Supplies Up to 50% of Russia’s Ammunition Needs, Ukrainian Intel Reveals
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North Korea now supplies between 35% and 50% of Russia’s ammunition needs, providing up to a quarter million artillery shells every month, Oleh Aleksandrov, an Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SZRU) officer told Ukrinform on October 6.
“North Korea currently provides from 35% to 50% of Russia’s ammunition needs, supplying 200,000 to 260,000 shells of 152 mm and 122 mm per month,” said Aleksandrov.
He noted that Pyongyang has already transferred KN-23 and KN-24 short-range ballistic missile launchers and missiles to Russia—weapons the Kremlin has used to strike Ukrainian cities.
According to the SZRU officer, both regimes are exploiting the war in Ukraine to test and refine North Korean weapon systems under real combat conditions. These include a modernized version of the Soviet Konkurs anti-tank missile system (North Korea’s “Phoenix-2”), the long-range self-propelled anti-tank system “Bulsae-4,” and the 600 mm KN-25 heavy multiple rocket launcher.
The SZRU estimates that between 8,500 and 13,000 North Korean troops are currently stationed in Russia’s Kursk region—a deployment that allows Moscow to redeploy an equivalent number of its own forces to the front in Ukraine.
Intelligence reports also confirm that in September, around 1,000 North Korean soldiers arrived in the Kursk region, in line with Pyongyang’s announcement of sending additional personnel—including 1,000 sappers and 5,000 military construction workers.
At the same time, the Kremlin is relying on North Korean labor migrants to offset workforce shortages caused by mobilization. More than 17,800 North Korean workers are currently employed in Russia, with plans to bring in another 26,000—including 6,000 assigned to construction projects in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, according to Ukrainian intelligence.
Earlier, North Korea showcased a new wheeled tank reportedly developed from a domestically produced version of the US-made Stryker armored vehicle.
The vehicle appears to use a chassis first seen during the 2020 military parade, featuring a distinctive gap between the second and third axles—an element characteristic of the Soviet-designed BTR-80 or its North Korean variant, the M2010 (Chunma-D). This suggests that the new platform may combine foreign design influences with indigenous engineering upgrades.
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