Zelensky not holding elections during wartime isn't in-and-of-itself unusual, that's normal wartime stuff for any besieged country. Even the banning of other political parties - while not great - I feel you can justify in the short-term, anyone even remotely less "fuck you!" toward Russia.
But it's a matter of how long he can keep that up. When all hope's lost for the war (I wouldn't go as far as to say *all* hope is lost for them *yet*, but they're certainly approaching that), he's going to have to release his grip on power and go to the people for a mandate, should they want him continuing in the role.
The North Koreans...ehh, it's hard to say really. I wouldn't really fear them much man-for-man as far as troop badassery, these aren't their grandfather's generation with the practical combat experience, but...they could become a big problem as far as expendable cannon-fodder. If it's only 10 000 guys for now, not that big a deal, but yeah, if it expands to 5, 10 times that, Ukraine could be in some fuckity shit even more than they are now. Kim says "jump" and these guys are gonna jump, even if it's suicidal, for them refusing to advance is suicide too, whether it's Putin or Kim who executes them for it.
Wave attacks have been pretty effective against Ukraine, and having a whole new source of grunts for that could be pretty game-change-y, especially with Ukraine's manpower crisis and recent strategic blunders like Kursk. 10 000 NK guys isn't anything to panic about yet, but if it's just a foot in the door and many more are coming, yeah, eep.