North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (R) and Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) shake hands after a welcoming ceremony at Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, North Korea, on June 19, 2024. (Gavriil Grigorov / POOL / AFP via Getty Images)No longer a minor player, Pyongyang has become an essential cog in Russia's war machine. Now, Kyiv warns that its role may grow further still — but not overnight.Ukrainian intelligence in August issued alarming warnings hinting that Russia could soon ask North Korea to contribute up to 50,000 more of its troops for its war against Ukraine, with missiles, drone operators, and technical brigades to follow.This influx of additional troops and materiel would come on top of the soldiers, shells, and missiles that Moscow had already received, helping it accelerate its offensives against Ukrainian forces and ramp up strikes against Ukraine's cities.While this mass deployment is unlikely to happen immediately, experts who spoke to the Kyiv Independent agreed that a 50,000-strong reinforcement force would be a significant boost for Russian forces in any case — and that Pyongyang will increasingly be helping Russia's army in the future.Important support — and a cash bonanza for PyongyangIn almost any comparison, Russia and North Korea are hardly equals. The former has eight times the population of the latter, and the Russian economy is almost 100 times larger than North Korea's.But when it comes to military production, the two countries are surprisingly complementary, with North Korea helping Russia's war on Ukraine in many areas.“I wouldn't even say that North Korea is the minor partner in this relationship anymore," said Leonid Petrov, a researcher specializing in Pyongyang's international relations at the Australian National University.Assistance is not limited to boots on the ground. Since 2024, Russia has, for instance, launched at least several dozen North Korean ballistic missiles on Ukrainian territory. While these missiles vary in type, they are generally considered more powerful – but less accurate – than their Russian equivalents.Russia's dependency on North Korea does not stop there."This (dependency) was especially visible during the phase of the so-called 'artillery hunger' in Russian forces (in late 2022 and early 2023), when North Korea actively supplied Russia with ammunition," said Oleksandr Kovalenko, a military and political expert at the Ukrainian Center for Security Studies."Aside from that, (North Korea) produces high quantities of artillery powder, which Russian manufacturers cannot produce enough of," the researcher said.Specialized personnel is also important, with Ukrainian intelligence estimating that North Korea had recently sent 400 drone operators to Russia.Another case in point was Russia's efforts to push Ukrainian forces out of Kursk Oblast, a western Russian border region partially occupied by Ukraine between August 2024 and the spring of 2025.Moscow's campaign there would have been "much slower" without support from North Korean soldiers, Kovalenko said, adding that Russian advances in other sections of the front line would have also been more difficult without North Korean military deliveries.