Ukraine war briefing: North Korea sending 50,000 troops to Russia – Zelenskyy

Up to 50,000 North Korean soldiers will be deployed in Russia, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said, while calling on South Korea to provide support for Ukraine’s air defence. It is an increase from the estimated 30,000 announced by the Ukrainian president in July. Kyiv had found some North Korean missiles in Ukraine’s territory, he said. “It is absolutely clear that ⁠North Korea will continue to build its experience in modern warfare, receive licences from Russia, and receive all ​kinds of military tools from them.”

This month, an official at Ukraine’s military intelligence told Reuters that a North Korean missile unit has begun deploying personnel and equipment to western Russia and the unit could be equipped with 120 ballistic ⁠missiles and six launchers for strikes against Ukraine. North Korea sent an estimated 14,000 soldiers to Russia’s Kursk region in 2024, helping Moscow fight an invasion by Ukrainian forces. Thousands have been wounded or killed. North Korea has supplied ​Russia with millions ‌of artillery and mortar rounds – sometimes of dangerously low quality, according to Russian milbloggers and troops – ​as well as ballistic missiles, long-range ​artillery and multiple-launch rocket systems, according to Ukrainian and independent assessments.

Zelenskyy continued that Ukraine “would very much like to receive support from South Korea in ‌an area where we have a shortage”, referring to air defence systems. “We are ready to work on the drone deal and other areas as well,” he said, adding that Ukrainian diplomats “are in contact” with Seoul to push potential deals. Ukraine is very short of high-end ​air defences and Russia has ​tried to exploit this by using ​more ballistic missiles, which are very hard to shoot down without interceptors like the US-owned Patriot.

Seventy Atacms short-range ballistic missiles are part of a weapons package that Ukraine is poised to buy from Turkey, according to US congressional documents (pdf). The US would have to approve the resale of the American-origin weapons. The state department indicated to Congress it is prepared to give permission. Along with the M39 Atacms missiles, Turkey also plans to sell Kyiv 47,000 artillery rounds, 12 M270 multiple-launch rocket systems (MLRS) and more than 2,000 cluster bombs, according to the notice from the US state department.

Russian missiles struck a high-rise apartment block in the Saltivskyi district of Kharkiv, killing two people and injuring 13, said regional head Oleh Syniehubov. Zelenskyy said eight people were wounded in Odesa, where strikes damaged the power grid, the port and residential buildings. He condemned an “absolutely brutal” strike targeting energy infrastructure near a shopping centre in Pavlohrad, Dnipropetrovsk region, that wounded nine people including four children.

Russia said Ukrainian drones killed five people and injured two dozen others in the Belgorod region. Zelenskyy, in his evening address on Sunday, defended Ukraine’s replies to Russia’s attacks – including strikes on Russian oil refineries, air defence systems and radar stations – as “truly just responses”. “The Russian war will be increasingly felt at home, in Russia,” he said.

The World Health Organization chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said a WHO warehouse stocking medical supplies in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro was destroyed in strikes on Friday. “I cannot say loudly enough: attacks on health care must stop. Otherwise, people are deprived of lifesaving healthcare,” Tedros posted. “Even wars have rules. One of those is that health must be protected!”

Ukrainian drone strikes damaged commercial sites and a home in the Russian city of Novorossiysk, said the mayor, Andrey Kravchenko. A major fuel terminal is located at Novorossiysk that links Kazakhstan’s oilfields to markets around the world. It has previously been a target for Ukrainian strikes.

Bulgaria summoned Ukraine’s ambassador after a drone entered Bulgarian airspace, the country’s public broadcaster BNT reported on Sunday. The drone exploded on Saturday close to an international gas pipeline shortly after crossing the border from Romania, the Bulgarians said. No casualties or damage were reported. Bulgaria’s defence ministry said the incident was likely accidental and involved a drone that appeared to be a Ukrainian type. Kyiv’s foreign ministry said Ukraine did not deliberately target Bulgaria and the two sides were in “close contact” about it.

A “powerful explosion” believed to be from a combat drone was reported in the village of Crocmaz, in south-east Moldova near the border with Ukraine, local police said on Sunday. No one was injured by the impact, which caused a vegetation fire in the Stefan Voda district, police said, adding that “fragments of a combat drone were found at the scene” and would be examined by specialists. Police did not specify the origin of the drone.

The UK defence secretary, Wes Streeting, has urged allies to boost Ukraine’s air defences ahead of a winter that Vladimir Putin will seek to use as a “weapon” against Kyiv. Writing in the Sunday Times, Streeting warned that while Putin was currently losing the war, “Ukrainians know what winter brings, and how it can change the picture”. Allies’ efforts to assist Ukraine “must include greater resources for air defence”. “My task – alongside my German counterpart Boris Pistorius, with whom I co-chair the Ukraine defence contact group – is to turn the goodwill of some 50 nations into concrete help.”

Pope Leo on Sunday said innocent people were being ⁠killed and wounded in Ukraine and Russia, and called for an end to ⁠the conflict. “Tragic incidents ⁠are ​multiplying, causing an ever-growing number of civilian victims, including children,” the pontiff said before worshippers ⁠gathered for Sunday’s Angelus prayer. “I renew my heartfelt appeal for international humanitarian law to be ⁠respected and for attacks against civilian targets to cease on ​both sides.” More than ‌16,000 civilians have been killed, according to the UN, the overwhelming majority of them Ukrainian.