On Friday, North Korea’s leader seemed to confirm, for the initial time, significant casualties among the forces he dispatched to Ukraine to support Russian President Vladimir Putin.
During a ceremony showcasing images of 100 soldiers and attended by their relatives, Kim paid tribute to these “heroic” troops, embracing children and visibly moved to tears.
Kim initially acknowledged dispatching thousands of soldiers to Russia’s Kursk region to fight for Putin in April. He later conceded some losses when he was seen grieving over flag-draped coffins.
However, the Friday ceremony marks the first instance he has conceded more than a few soldiers died, even though this figure represents only a fraction of the total casualties in the Kursk engagement, as reported by South Korean intelligence earlier this year.
In April, the South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) reported approximately 4,700 casualties among the 15,000 North Korean troops deployed to fight.
According to the East2West news service, Kim stated, “The combat operations of our overseas forces… undeniably demonstrated the might of the heroic [North Korean] army.” He added, “The liberation of Kursk affirmed the heroic spirit of our fighters.”
Russian forces are believed to have mostly recaptured Kursk following a cross-border operation into Russia launched in August 2024. Nevertheless, ongoing reports confirm that combat continues in the area, with Ukrainian forces still engaging Russian counterparts in the region.
On Thursday, the Ukrainian General Staff announced that Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces (USF), supported by other undisclosed Ukrainian units, carried out long-range drone attacks on the Novoshakhtinsky Oil Refinery. This refinery, a major oil product producer in southern Russia processing around 7.5 million tons of oil annually, supplies Russian forces operating in Ukraine, as reported by the Institute for the Study of War.
Approximately 15,000 soldiers were dispatched to Kursk in autumn 2024, followed by an additional 3,000 deployed in early 2025 to counter Ukraine’s operation. The current number of North Korean troops remaining in this southwest Russian region is unknown.
Earlier reports this year indicated that North Korea might consider sending more troops to assist Moscow by summer’s end, though it remains uncertain if any further foreign soldiers have been deployed to Russia.
Kim implied on Friday that North Korea’s participation in Russia’s conflict with Ukraine might be nearing its end, praising the “victorious conclusion of overseas military operations.”
However, it is also not clear if this signifies that forces already deployed to Russia might soon be repatriated.