North Korea has opened a memorial museum for its soldiers killed while fighting for Russia against Ukraine.
The North’s Korean Central News Agency disclosed that the inaugural ceremony of the Memorial Museum of Combat Feats at the Overseas Military Operations was held in Pyongyang to mark the one-year anniversary of the end of an operation to liberate the Kursk region.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attended the ceremony along with top visiting Russian officials including Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the State Duma, and Defense Minister Andrei Beloussov.
During the ceremony, Kim threw dirt over the remains of one dead soldier and laid flowers before others whose bodies were already placed in a mortuary, before he and Volodin and Beloussov left messages on the guest book.
The ceremony came months after North Korea completed a new housing district in Pyongyang for families of North Korean soldiers killed while fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine, in an effort by leader Kim Jong Un to honor the war dead.
Over the past decade, Russia and North Korea have developed a comprehensive strategic partnership formalized by a treaty in 2024. The two countries pledged mutual military support if either comes under attack by a third party.
In April 2025, North Korea and Russia announced that their soldiers fought together to repel a Ukraine incursion into Russia’s Kursk border region. The two countries haven’t disclosed exactly how many North Koreans soldiers were deployed, but South Korea’s intelligence service estimated last year that North Korea sent about 15,000 troops and 2,000 of them were killed.
In August 2025, North Korea sent around 1,000 military engineers to Russia’s Kursk region to assist Russian forces in clearing land mines planted during fighting with Ukrainian troops.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Kim has made Moscow the priority of his foreign policy by supplying troops and conventional weapons. In return, North Korea was believed to have received economic and other assistance from Russia. South Korea, the US and their partners worry Russia may transfer high-tech technologies that can enhance North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.
Experts say North Korean troops sent to the war earlier became easy targets for drone and artillery attacks due to their lack of combat experience and unfamiliarity with the terrain. However, Ukrainian military and intelligence officials have assessed that the North Koreans were gaining crucial battlefield experience and were key to Russia’s strategy of overwhelming Ukraine by throwing large numbers of soldiers into the battle for Kursk.
North Korea, Russia Pledges Greater Cooperation
Moreover, top leaders of North Korea and Russia pledged a push for greater cooperation.
Speaking at the ceremony, Kim said the spirits of dead North Korean soldiers will remain as “a symbol of the Korean people’s heroism” and support “a victorious march by the Korean and Russian people.”
Kim said the memorial museum represents North Korea and Russia’s commitment to bolstering bilateral ties, which were forged in “blood.”
“No matter how the rules of war change and whenever and wherever a crisis occurs, we should be strengthened into a sincere, dedicated and powerful bulwark with unified power.”
Kim Jong Un
He praised the North Korean and Russian forces for thwarting what he called a U.S.-led Western “hegemonic plot and military adventurism” on the Russian-Ukraine front.
In a letter to Kim read by Volodin during the ceremony, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the museum “will undoubtedly be a clear symbol of the friendship and solidarity” between the two countries. Putin said he was convinced that the two countries would continue to strengthen their comprehensive strategic partnership.
Meeting with Beloussov separately, Kim said that North Korea will fully support the Russian policy of defending its sovereignty and security interests. Russia’s state news agency cited Belousov as telling Kim that Russia was ready to sign a Russian-North Korean military cooperation plan for the 2027-2031 period.
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