Symbolic imageZelensky says North Korea to send up to 50,000 troops to Russia
Ukrainian President Zelensky said on Sunday that Pyongyang is preparing a deployment of that size to Russia. Reuters and Nikkei Asia carried the statement; the figure is not independently confirmed.
Both reports, dated Sunday, 9 August, are brief agency items: neither gives a timeframe, a destination for the soldiers, nor the basis for the figure. Kyiv presents the number as a sharp increase on earlier North Korean deployments to Russia. On that account, Pyongyang would become a significant supplier of manpower for Moscow's summer campaign. Beyond the president's own assertion, the two published texts offer no corroborating detail.
Other opinions
Russian and North Korean outlets are absent from the day's sources: the figure circulates so far only through Western and Japanese agency reporting (Reuters, Nikkei Asia), with no response from Moscow or Pyongyang in either item.