Zelenskyy Says North Korea Will Send 10,000 More Troops as Belgium Promises Three F-16s

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Monday that Russia is quietly widening its war effort, with North Korea preparing to send another 10,000 troops and Moscow pushing new recruitment after its parliamentary elections.

In his nightly address on September 28, Zelenskyy said more than 8,000 North Korean troops are already on Russian territory and that Pyongyang is preparing to deploy 10,000 more. In return, he said, Russia is providing technological help, and North Korea has begun manufacturing Shahed attack drones.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, signed off on a larger military the same day. The new ceiling sets total personnel at 2,441,630, including 1,550,500 active-duty troops, a 15,500-person increase and the fourth such expansion since early 2025. Ukrainian intelligence assesses that Russia's General Staff is prepared to mobilize about 300,000 people a year through 2026 and 2027, on top of the roughly 400,000 it needs annually to replace losses.

"This is how evil spreads and how a threat to life in one part of the world spreads to other parts," Zelenskyy said, calling for coordinated international sanctions and more military aid.

There was some help on the way. Zelenskyy said Belgium will transfer three F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine by the end of the year under an accelerated procedure, and that Ukraine has already received urgent deliveries of F-16 ammunition from Belgium, Spain and other partners.

The fighting continued in the meantime. Russia escalated strikes on Ukraine's energy infrastructure, hitting sites in Kyiv and surrounding areas. Zelenskyy said glide bombs struck homes and a school in the northeastern city of Sumy, killing two people and wounding six. Across the country, five people, including a child, were killed by Russian attacks, according to the president.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Serhiy Koretsky also said Russia had stepped up its attacks on the energy system.

Tension is also rising on the other side of the Eurasian landmass. South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff on Wednesday demanded that North Korea immediately stop fortification work near the inter-Korean border. Kim Yo Jong, the sister of leader Kim Jong Un, dismissed a South Korean investigation into a recent mine blast in the demilitarized zone that wounded South Korean soldiers. The U.N. Command said the incident violated the Korean War armistice.

Taken together, the reports point to an alliance between Moscow and Pyongyang that keeps deepening, and to a Ukrainian government that says it needs faster Western deliveries of aircraft, ammunition and sanctions pressure to keep up.