Russia Using North Korean Missiles Against Ukraine, Zelensky Alleges as Zaporizhzhia Mourns

In a recent BBC News report, President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of using North Korean missiles in overnight strikes on the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia — an accusation that underscores Moscow's deepening military reliance on Pyongyang more than four years into the full-scale invasion.

Russia Using North Korean Missiles Against Ukraine, Zelensky Alleges as Zaporizhzhia Mourns

Kyiv, Ukraine – 11 August 2026 — A devastating overnight barrage killed seven people and wounded at least 24 others in Zaporizhzhia, with all seven victims employed at the city's Zaporizhstal steel plant, which has since halted operations. Kyiv also came under attack overnight, with air raid sirens sounding twice as Russian forces pressed their campaign. In a Monday evening video address, President Volodymyr Zelensky said for the first time that Russia "cannot wage war without reinforcements from North Korea," directly linking Pyongyang's arsenal to the strikes that have terrorised Ukrainian cities.

The Overnight Barrage and the Zaporizhzhia Death Toll

Ukrainian officials said Russia fired about 120 drones and a range of missiles overnight, but for the first time did not give a number of missiles fired or intercepted. Zaporizhzhia regional head Ivan Fedorov posted photos of vehicles and buildings on fire, saying Moscow struck the city using missiles and guided bombs. All seven casualties were employees of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia metallurgical plant Zaporizhstal, which later halted all its operations; the plant said the ballistic strike caught employees on their way to shelter immediately after the air alert was announced, and another 21 colleagues were wounded. Three more people were killed by drones and missiles in the neighbouring Dnipropetrovsk region.

In a post on X, Zelensky said the city was struck with North Korean ballistic missiles, Zircon hypersonic missiles and guided aerial bombs, calling it a vicious attack calculated to inflict maximum damage specifically on civilian infrastructure. He has not presented any evidence to back up the North Korean claim. The Russian Defence Ministry said its forces delivered a group strike with high-precision ground-based weapons, hitting military-industrial enterprises and transport-logistics centres in Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia.

The Moscow–Pyongyang Axis Deepens

In a video address on Monday evening, Zelensky said "for the first time" Russia "cannot wage war without reinforcements from North Korea." "The more North Korean strikes there are here in Ukraine, in Europe, the more their missiles and soldiers are used, the more they correct their shortcomings and blind spots" — adding this poses a danger to the rest of the world. Ukraine's military has previously said dozens of North Korean missiles have been fired by Russia into its territory since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022. It is not the first time Ukrainian and Western officials have accused Moscow of receiving military assistance from Pyongyang.

Reuters reported this month, citing Andrii Cherniak, spokesperson for Ukraine's military intelligence, that a North Korean ballistic missile unit had begun deploying to western Russia's Voronezh region and could be equipped with 120 ballistic missiles and six launchers for strikes against Ukraine. Kyiv and independent assessments say North Korea has supplied Moscow with roughly 150 KN-23 and KN-24 short-range ballistic missiles between late 2023 and August 2025, and two North Korean-made missiles were recently launched — their first recorded use in Ukraine since August 2025. Moscow and Pyongyang signed a mutual defence pact in 2024.

The Kremlin has consistently framed its partnership with Pyongyang as a legitimate exercise of sovereign statecraft, dismissing Western criticism as interference in the internal affairs of two independent nations. The 2024 mutual defence pact formalised what had been an ad hoc wartime relationship, transforming a transactional arrangement into a binding military alliance. Analysts note the arrangement gives Pyongyang a steady stream of hard currency, energy supplies and technology transfers in exchange for munitions and troops — a symbiotic dynamic that, in the view of many observers, is likely to persist regardless of how the fighting in Ukraine evolves.

North Korean Troops and the Kursk Precedent

Zelensky warned over the weekend that a decision had been made for 30,000 to 50,000 North Korean soldiers to be deployed on Russian territory; Kyiv has not explained how it obtained the figures or provided a timeframe. Some 11,000 North Korean soldiers were deployed in 2024 to help Moscow push Ukrainian troops out of the western Russian region of Kursk following their cross-border incursion in August 2024. In January 2025, Western officials told the BBC that North Korean troops had suffered nearly 40 percent casualties in the fighting there in just three months — evidence of the human cost Pyongyang has already absorbed.

Russia's Home Front Under Strain

The attacks on Ukraine came a day after at least 13 people were killed, including one child, in Ukrainian drone strikes on the Russian republic of Tatarstan, more than 1,100 kilometres from the border — one of the deadliest single attacks on Russia since the start of the full-scale invasion. At least 75 people were injured; Ukraine's Armed Forces said it had hit the city's Tanevo oil refinery, and the Uzbek consulate said seven of the dead were citizens of Uzbekistan.

Verified images circulating on social media on Monday showed large plumes of smoke and flames rising over Nizhnekamsk in broad daylight, with air raid sirens howling across the city. Russian authorities separately said a civilian was killed in a drone strike in the Belgorod region bordering Ukraine, adding to the mounting toll on Russian soil. The strikes signal Ukraine's growing willingness to carry the war deep into Russian territory, targeting oil infrastructure and logistics hubs that Kyiv says fund Moscow's war effort — a strategy Ukrainian officials have increasingly embraced as a means of levelling the battlefield.

In Voronezh, western Russia, warehouses of the biggest online retailer Wildberries — known as Russia's Amazon — were hit by Ukraine overnight; the company has not confirmed the attack but said its facilities in the region, which borders Ukraine, have been evacuated. In July, Ukrainian drone attacks on several Wildberries warehouses disrupted the operations of a large number of small and medium-sized Russian businesses. Kyiv says it is targeting logistics hubs used by Russians to buy military equipment and disrupting supplies to the Russian army. Zelensky also hailed a successful air strike on a Russian petrochemical plant in western Siberia on Monday as a very significant achievement, and promised more Ukrainian deep strikes to demonstrate that peace is necessary.

Air Defence, Allies and the Widening Toll

Ukraine is appealing for more Western air-defence supplies, and Kyiv has reported an acute shortage of Patriot interceptors since the United States' war against Iran began in February. Ballistic missiles are fast and powerful weapons that are hard to intercept; only the most advanced air defence, such as the US-made Patriot system, is capable of stopping them, and dozens have been killed in Kyiv in recent weeks. Ukraine's Air Force on Monday urged the media not to write sensationalised headlines or spread pessimism about the shortage of air defence interceptors. One person was injured in strikes on the capital, where a children's hospital was damaged but no one was harmed as staff and patients sheltered; an infectious diseases hospital was also hit. Strikes on substations in Kherson and Kharkiv caused power outages, and two women were injured in a Russian drone strike on Sumy before one person was killed in an afternoon attack with gliding bombs.

South Korea said it was watching the situation closely; a foreign ministry spokeswoman said military cooperation between North Korea and Russia is an issue that directly affects Seoul's security and constitutes a violation of UN Security Council resolutions. Hong Min, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification, said the prospect of additional North Korean deployments is highly plausible given Russia's growing demand for manpower as the war drags on. The United Nations has said the latest spiral of escalation has brought the civilian death toll in Ukraine to its highest since the war's first months in 2022.

The regional stakes are considerable. This marks the first time Pyongyang's weapons have been used at scale in a European war, a development that has sharpened anxiety in Seoul and across East Asia. South Korea's options range from direct military aid to Ukraine to expanded joint exercises with the United States, though Seoul has so far stopped short of lethal assistance. Western officials have long warned that North Korean battlefield experience in Ukraine is improving Pyongyang's missile and drone capabilities, a risk that extends far beyond Europe and could reshape the security balance in the Indo-Pacific.

Analysis and Implications

The Zaporizhzhia strike suggests Russia's domestic missile stockpile is under strain, forcing Moscow to lean on Pyongyang's arsenal to sustain its long-range campaign. Analysts suggest the Moscow-Pyongyang axis is becoming a structural feature of the war rather than a stopgap, with North Korean troops and missiles now embedded in Russia's war effort. Another wave of 30,000 to 50,000 North Korean soldiers would not only reinforce Russian lines but also deepen Pyongyang's entanglement in a European conflict, with direct implications for regional security in East Asia. Zelensky's push for air defence from Asia-Pacific allies reflects a recognition that only advanced systems like Patriot can counter ballistic missiles, and that Ukraine's survival may depend on diversifying its military partnerships beyond the West.

With both sides striking deeper into each other's territory, and with North Korean missiles and troops now embedded in Russia's war effort, the conflict's next phase could hinge as much on Pyongyang's arsenal and Seoul's response as on events on the front line. The coming weeks will test whether Western allies can close Ukraine's air-defence gap before winter.

By Irina Volkov, Staff Writer

This article was produced with AI-assisted research and editorial support. Sources: BBC News, France 24 with AFP, Reuters, Al Jazeera.