New Delhi: A North Korean missile unit has begun deploying to western Russia and could eventually field as many as 120 ballistic missiles and six launchers for strikes on Ukraine, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency has said. The disclosure marks a significant expansion of the military partnership between Moscow and Pyongyang – one that Kyiv fears will further erode its already stretched air defences.
Andrii Cherniak, an official at Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR), said Russia plans to station around 90 North Korean personnel in the Voronezh region of western Russia to operate the new unit. He said the arrangement’s final details are expected to be settled during high-level talks between the two countries next month.
Reuters, which first reported the development, said it could not independently verify Cherniak’s claims, which he attributed to intelligence that could not be disclosed for reasons of sensitivity. The Russian defence ministry and North Korea’s embassy at the United Nations in New York did not respond to requests for comment.
Missiles bigger, but less precise
Cherniak’s account coincides with Russia’s use, last week, of its first two North Korean-made missiles fired at Ukraine since August last year, drawing on a fresh consignment of 40 munitions that Pyongyang is understood to have supplied. Ukrainian officials say North Korea’s KN-23 and KN-24 short-range ballistic missiles carry heavier warheads than Russia’s own systems, though with a corresponding loss of accuracy.
One such strike last week flattened a residential home in the central Ukrainian village of Radushne, killing at least five members of one family, according to Ukrainian authorities. Russia has fired dozens of North Korean ballistic missiles at Ukraine since late 2023, but a dedicated missile unit staffed by North Korean troops would represent a new and more direct form of involvement.
North Korea’s support for Russia’s war effort has grown steadily since 2023, and now extends well beyond munitions. Pyongyang has supplied millions of artillery shells and sent some 14,000 troops to Russia’s Kursk region in 2024 to help repel a Ukrainian incursion, according to Ukrainian officials.
Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a Philadelphia-based thinktank, said the North Korean missile capability posed a genuine threat to Kyiv. Ballistic missile defence remains one of Ukraine’s greatest vulnerabilities, he said, and any rise in the number of such missiles it faces will make the task harder still.
Lee added that Ukraine’s air defences would be tested severely this winter if Russia again targets the country’s power grid, as it has in previous years. The reported deployment follows a heavy Russian barrage on Kyiv and the surrounding region on Tuesday, underlining the scale of the threat facing Ukrainian cities as the war enters its fifth winter.
For its part, India has consistently called for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict and has avoided taking sides publicly. A closer Moscow-Pyongyang military axis, coming alongside China’s own quiet backing of Russia, adds another layer to the complex balancing act India must manage in its ties with all three capitals.