This morning, 9 people could not get up in the Zaporizhzhia region and the city of Dnipropetrovsk. Russia fired a slew of missiles, glide bombs and long-range drones over Ukraine into the night, and among the wreckage was something of much more significance than the casualties: The ballistic missiles that hit the Zaporizhya region, killing six and injuring nineteen people, were of North Korean origin. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said as much late Monday, and it's a trend that's been developing over the past few months rather than a dramatic spike.

In the same period, the air force of Kyiva claims that Russia has launched Zircon anti-ship missiles and Iskander ballistic missiles at Zaporizhzhia and the capital, and sent some 120 long-range strike drones throughout the country. Another three were killed, including a 15-year-old boy, in Dnipropetrovsk due to drone and artillery strikes. The strikes, Moscow itself said in a statement by its defence ministry, were against "military industrial facilities and transport and logistics centres", including a drone storage base in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, and a metallurgical plant in Zaporizhzhia. Again, both were using virtually different words to talk about the same night.

What cannot be denied is the course of the Moscow-Pyongyang relationship, which is already two years old since Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un signed their defence pact. On top of the estimated North Korean troops that have rotated through Kursk since the end of 2024, which range from ten to twelve thousand, Ukraine's Zelenskyy said Russia has received new shipments of North Korean ballistic missiles and is readying even more forces.Russia has received new batches of North Korean ballistic missiles and is preparing to bring in more troops, and separate estimates by the UK and South Korea indicate at least six thousand North Korean soldiers were killed in Kursk. This month, a Ukrainian intelligence source claimed a North Korean missile battalion comprising about ninety personnel has started to establish operations in the Russian Voronezh region, which may include up to 120 ballistic missiles and six launchers. Experts monitoring North Korea's arms traffic peg sales worth in excess of twenty billion dollars worth of weapons sent between 2023 and early 2025 alone, with deliveries increasing since that time. That is no charity. It is the best-paying arms deal North Korea has ever done in many decades and includes one thing that can't be bought: live combat data. Those officials who are analyzing the Korean artillery coordination, drone countermeasures and missile guidance lessons Pyongyang is taking on this battlefield say they won't be sitting in Ukraine. They will return to the Korean peninsula, and that is the part of Zelenskyy's warning that is worth more than just Kyiv and Moscow.

Under the missile problem there is also another numbers problem. The Institute for the Study of War has pointed out that Ukraine's lack of Patriot interceptors is a real opportunity for Russia that could allow it to do significant damage over the coming winter and further extend the possibility of any real negotiation. Russian production of missiles is being ramped up on purpose to take advantage of that, while preparations are being made for a new recruitment campaign to shore up a front line some 1,250 kilometres long, Zelenskyy says. But diplomacy has fallen silent. The pro-American drive for a ceasefire stalled months ago as the United States became fixated with the issue of Iran and European capitals continued to grapple with a conflict that appears to be unabated.

But the more important battle that is under way may not be over land it may be over Russia's willingness to pay the price for the war it is waging. According to Ukraine's own estimate by its General Staff, nearly 43 per cent of the country's oil refining capacity has been affected at various stages this year, with losses to the refining sector since August 2025 running in the region of $13.5 billion. More than 20 Russian regions are now subject to fuel rationing and, according to reports within the country, the rationing is starting to filter into Moscow, with some petrol stations restricting sales, even at state-run stations. Ukraine's General Staff claimed it hit the Orsknefteorgsintez refinery, about 1,500 kilometres from the border, overnight and a fire ensued in the logistics facilities of the online grocery delivery service Wildberries in Voronezh, a reminder that Ukraine's own long-range campaign is no longer limited to military targets in any narrow sense.

However, the financial situation is far harder to come by than the refinery photos make it appear. This resilience of export volumes despite absorption of processing capacity has been driven primarily by the fact that Russia is still able to sell crude abroad despite limited ability to process it at home. According to the projections of the Kyiv School of Economics, the share of Russia's oil exports will be the lowest it has been since the beginning of the invasion in India and China in 2026 depending on the intensity of Western sanctions, the value of Russian exports could reach $162 billion or even more in the coming year. That's the actual reality of this war's fourth summer: Ukraine has discovered a method to bleed Russia's war machine other than Western tanks or air defence inventories but the bleeding has been a little slow and Moscow has so far found workarounds a little faster than expected.

There is no clear endgame here. Russia has not only not been unable to incapacitate its air defence, despite the nation being a struggling economy, but also managed to intercept almost 400 Ukrainian drones overnight in 14 regions and in Crimea. North Korea's armed forces and missiles are closing the holes that Russia can't close on its own, but at a cost Pyongyang is only too willing to pay in cash and battle scars. Of course, Ukraine's refinery campaign is proving to be successful in action, but it has still not compelled Moscow to the negotiating table.