North Korean leader Kim Jong Un hailed his country’s fallen soldiers in Russia’s war against Ukraine as “heroes” at an emotional award ceremony, state media said Friday, in a rare public admission of the losses Pyongyang has suffered in the conflict.
The North Korean leader “extended deep gratitude and warmest militant respect” to those who had returned home “despite the hail of bullets and bombs of the life-and-death war in the foreign country,” state news agency KCNA reported.
“The victory won by the brave soldiers who participated in the war is a great feat that firmly defended the great honor of the KPA,” Kim was quoted as saying, referring to his military, the Korean People’s Army.
Photos released by state media showed Kim pinning commendation badges on soldiers’ uniforms as well as on photo frames of deceased soldiers hung on a wall. They also showed him meeting with and embracing tearful family members of deceased soldiers.
KCNA said Kim laid a flower on a memorial wall and paid a silent tribute at the ceremony, during which the national anthem was also played.
The ceremony on Thursday came a week after Kim received a letter from Russian President Vladimir Putin that also described the North Korean troops as “heroic.”
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“The bonds of militant friendship, goodwill and mutual aid which were consolidated in the days of the war long ago remain solid and reliable even today,” Putin said in the letter published by North Korean state media Voice of Korea.
Pyongyang and Moscow have forged increasingly close ties after the Kremlin found itself diplomatically isolated following its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Kim and Putin signed a mutual defense pact last year, and experts say North Korea may have sent Russia troops in exchange for advanced military technology that would aid its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
Neither Russia nor North Korea confirmed the deployments until months after Pyongyang sent its first soldiers last fall. Though the two countries have not revealed the exact number of troops involved, it could be as high as 15,000, according to South Korean, U.S. and Ukrainian officials.
Of those, about 600 are believed to have been killed, South Korea’s spy agency said, and thousands more injured.
Though North Korea has one of the largest militaries in the world, its troops have had little real-world combat experience since the end of the Korean War in 1953. But they are strongly loyal to Kim and are trained to take their own lives rather than surrender, former North Korean soldiers who defected have told NBC News.
According to South Korean intelligence, there was at least one incident in which a North Korean soldier seeking to avoid capture by Ukrainian forces was killed while trying to detonate a grenade and shouting Kim’s name.
It is unclear how many North Korean troops remain on the frontlines. South Korean lawmakers said after an intelligence briefing in June that North Korea could deploy additional troops to Russia in July or August and that it was continuing to supply Moscow with arms.
It is “highly unusual” for North Korea to hold a ceremony honoring soldiers during an ongoing conflict, Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, told NBC News.
The absence of any senior Russian representatives or any reference to close ties with Russia could indicate that North Korea is “expressing dissatisfaction at being sidelined” in recent negotiations among Putin, President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy over ending the war in Ukraine, Yang said.
“If such dissatisfaction continues, cracks could appear between Pyongyang and Moscow,” he said.
But if they manage to mend their differences, Yang said, “it cannot be ruled out that North Korean forces will remain stationed for a time as a tripwire along the Russia–Ukraine border.”
