For Asian capitals, a missile unit from North Korea setting up in western Russia is not a distant story. A Ukrainian intelligence official said the unit has started deploying and may come with six launchers and 120 ballistic missiles, to be turned on Ukraine.
The claim came from Andrii Cherniak, a Ukrainian military intelligence official, speaking to Reuters. About 90 North Korean personnel would be based in Russia’s Voronezh region, he said, folded into the 112th Missile Brigade. A source told Reuters that Washington knows about the deployment but would say no more. The CIA declined to comment, and the Russian Defence Ministry and the North Korean mission in New York had not answered.
What has moved, and what is still open
According to Cherniak, 40 more KN-23 and KN-24 missiles, plus staff, have already arrived from Pyongyang. The final layout and the total number of missiles, he added, would be settled at top-level talks the following month. Russia expects 120 missiles and six launchers. What the North Koreans will actually do is unclear.
The timing fits a recent pattern. The previous week Russia sent two North Korean-made missiles into Ukraine, the first recorded since August 2025, and Cherniak said they came from that new batch. Ukrainian authorities said one missile destroyed a house in Radushne, a central village, and at least five people from a single family died. Cherniak counted 150 missiles delivered earlier, from late 2023 up to August 2025.
The KN-23 and KN-24 reach farther and carry bigger warheads than Russia’s Iskander, Ukrainian military sources say, but they are far less accurate and have been tied to attacks with heavy civilian tolls. The National Security Journal puts the KN-23’s range at around 690 kilometers, with a payload of 500 kilograms.
Why Kyiv is worried
Kyiv lacks enough top-tier air defences, and ballistic missiles are the hardest weapons to shoot down. Rob Lee of the Foreign Policy Research Institute said ballistic missile defence “is one of Ukraine’s greatest vulnerabilities,” so any rise in the numbers it faces “will pose a greater challenge.” He pointed to winter, when Russia could again go after the power grid.
North Korea has become a close ally of Moscow since the full-scale invasion in 2022, and the two countries entered a mutual defence treaty in 2024. Ukrainian officials say Pyongyang has furnished millions of artillery shells and dispatched 14,000 troops to the Kursk region in 2024. Cherniak said around 9,500 North Korean troops are in Kursk, not directly fighting Ukraine for now. A month earlier, Zelenskiy had said the Kremlin wanted 30,000 more, and that Russia was readying Voronezh to receive them.
Cherniak said his information rests on intelligence that cannot be made public.
Sources
- North Korean missile unit deploys in Russia for Ukraine war, Kyiv says (Reuters via AsiaOne)
- Russia plans to deploy North Korean missile unit with 6 launchers and 120 missiles (Defence-UA)
- Ukraine Has a New Problem: North Korea Sending to Russia Up to 120 Missiles (National Security Journal)
