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North Korea Secretly Sent 20% of Its Elite Troops to Fight for Russia in Ukraine
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![Photo of Vlad Litnarovych]( "Photo of Vlad Litnarovych")
North Korea has deployed approximately 11,000 elite troops to support Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov revealed on a press briefing, The Kyiv Independent reported on June 26.
The deployment, he said, represents over 20% of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s so-called “personal reserve”—a force of 50,000 soldiers handpicked based on strict physical, psychological, and ideological criteria.
“These are soldiers specially selected based on physical, psychological, and other criteria,” Umerov said. “These units have already suffered significant losses.”
Umerov warned that Pyongyang has even considered sending more troops to bolster Russian forces, but doing so could dangerously deplete North Korea’s strategic reserves and threaten the regime’s internal stability. “That decision would put Kim Jong Un’s security at risk,” he stated.
According to Ukrainian intelligence, there have been up to four waves of troop rotations involving these elite North Korean units, with multiple contingents reportedly wiped out on the battlefield. Umerov cited these losses as evidence of the high casualty rates and Moscow’s deepening personnel shortages.
“The use of North Korea’s elite military forces underscores not just Russia’s growing dependence on authoritarian regimes,” Umerov said, “but also the real problems Russia is facing in maintaining a sustainable mobilization reserve.”
After signing recent bilateral security agreements, Moscow appears to be exploiting Pyongyang’s military capabilities while offering little in return, Umerov noted.
“In theory, these are supposed to be mutual defense guarantees. But in practice, it’s North Korea burning through its resources, while Russia offers no equivalent commitments,” he said. “Even within the North Korean regime, this imbalance is causing concern.”
Umerov emphasized that Ukraine, in coordination with Western partners, continues to monitor the movement and deployment of North Korean troops inside occupied Ukrainian territories.
The presence of these foreign units, he said, reflects Russia’s growing desperation and inability to sustain the war effort on its own.
Earlier, reports emerged that North Korea lost more than 6,000 troops while conducting offensive operations against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk region.
