North Korea builds memorial to soldiers killed fighting for Russia against Ukraine

Russia’s ambassador in Pyongyang also attended the ceremony, the Korean Central News Agency said on Thursday.

North Korea and Russia are strategic allies. The East Asian nation supplied caches of weapons as well as some 15,000 troops, according to South Korean estimates, to aid the Russian war effort against Ukraine. The Koreans mainly fought in Kursk, successfully beating back a Ukrainian invasion of the Russian border region.

While Pyongyang has publicly acknowledged just over 100 casualties, South Korean lawmakers have claimed a figure close to 600.

The British defence ministry has claimed that some 6,000 North Korean soldiers died fighting against Ukraine, accounting for over half of the 11,000 troops initially sent to Kursk.

Speaking at the ceremony, Mr Kim noted that a full year had passed since his country “dispatched our combatants to the Kursk region of the Russian Federation, and what we have experienced up to now is far more miraculous and meaningful than what we expected”.

“Our heroes destroyed the fiendish neo-Nazi invaders with their staunch spirit not to tolerate any aggression but to annihilate the aggressors,” he said. “The sacred journey marked the beginning of a new history of militant solidarity between the DPRK and Russia.”

The memorial will reportedly include group sculptures, photos, artworks, and battle relics.

Mr Kim said his country’s partnership with Russia would “advance nonstop” as they had grown closer in the “flames of bloody battles”.

“Pyongyang will always be with Moscow. Our friendship and unity will last forever,” he said, adding that the relationship was “now rising to its historic peak”.

In June last year, North Korea and Russia formalised a "Comprehensive Strategic Partnership" to deepen their relationship. The treaty includes a mutual defence agreement that obligates both nations to assist the other in the event of armed aggression.

The North Korean deployment in Kursk wasn’t initially acknowledged in public either by Pyongyang or Moscow, even as Ukrainian and South Korean intelligence reported the first North Korean casualties.

Mr Kim hosted an emotional ceremony in August to pay tribute to the troops sent to Russia. It was a rare public admission by Pyongyang of military casualties in a foreign conflict.

Mr Kim’s remarks come as US president Donald Trump prepares to visit South Korea, the North’s bitter rival, next week. Mr Trump is visiting the East Asian country after imposing new sanctions on Russia's two largest oil companies in the latest effort to pressure Moscow to negotiate an end to the Ukraine war.