After Pyongyang formally acknowledged its role in the conflict on Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated North Korean troops for engaging Ukrainian forces in combat in the Kursk area of Russia.
In a Kremlin statement on Monday, Putin thanked North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and commended the “heroism, excellent training, and dedication” of North Korean soldiers who fought “shoulder to shoulder with Russian soldiers, defending our Motherland as their own.”
Only two days after Russia declared it had completely retaken the Kursk area, which is located near the Ukrainian border, North Korea acknowledged the force deployment.
Ukraine had seized territory in the Kursk area after a surprise incursion launched in August 2024. Ukrainian officials deny Russia’s claim that it has fully recaptured the region.
“The operation to liberate Kursk by repelling the adventurous invasion of Russia by Ukraine was successfully concluded”, Pyongyang said in a statement carried by state media.
The troops “made an important contribution in annihilating and wiping out the Ukrainian neo-Nazi occupiers by displaying mass heroism, unmatched bravery and self-sacrifice”, the statement read, reclaiming Russia’s baseless narrative, used as a justification for the invasion, that Ukraine needed to be “denazified.”
US, South Korean and Ukrainian intelligence have said that North Korea dispatched between 10,000 and 12,000 soldiers in Ukraine last autumn.
The deployment marked North Korea’s first participation in a major armed conflict since the end of the Korean War in 1953.
Kim Jong Un decided to send troops to Russia under a mutual defence treaty signed with President Putin in June 2024, according to North Korean state media.
The treaty requires both nations to use all available means to provide immediate military assistance if either is attacked.
North Korea did not confirm how many soldiers it had sent to Russia or how many had died. In March, South Korea’s military assessed that around 4,000 North Korean soldiers had been killed or wounded in Russia’s war against Ukraine.
