Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that Russia could soon deploy up to 50,000 elite North Korean soldiers. If the figure is accurate, that is the largest combat force Pyongyang has ever sent beyond its own borders.

The tally so far looks like this: around 13,000 North Korean soldiers were sent to Russia's Kursk region towards the end of 2024. Of those, by current estimates, between 2,300 and 3,000 have been killed and 1,500 wounded. Ukrainian military intelligence says there are still around 8,500 North Korean soldiers in Russia, deployed across four brigades, currently not taking part in fighting on Ukrainian territory.

The price of one soldier

Analysts estimate North Korea has earned nearly 10 billion dollars from selling weapons and sending soldiers to Russia over two and a half years. That is around a third of the country's annual gross domestic product. Kim Jong Un has found an export product that requires neither a factory nor technology - just people who are not allowed to refuse.

Only two North Korean soldiers have been captured alive by Ukrainian forces. Both refuse to go home, because they fear their families will be punished. One of them said: "For us, being taken prisoner is a crime. It simply is not an option."

Read that sentence again. He is not afraid of the enemy - he is afraid of his own state.

What Pyongyang gets besides the money

The calculation is not only financial. Sending soldiers gives Kim geopolitical independence from Beijing and positions him as an equal interlocutor with Putin and Xi Jinping. Russia, for its part, is losing around 6,000 people a month - more than it manages to recruit. Foreign soldiers are not a luxury but a necessity.

The Balkans know this scene by heart: when a war cannot be won with your own people, you import somebody else's. What is new here is that the second sender charges in hard currency rather than asking for territory.