North Korea acknowledged for the first time on Monday that it sent troops to fight for Russia in its ongoing war against Ukraine.
North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un had sent troops to Russia under the mutual defence treaty, the Central Military Commission of the ruling Workers' Party said in a statement.
“They who fought for justice are all heroes and representatives of the honour of the motherland,” Kim said, according to the statement sent to state media.
The decision reportedly made a significant contribution towards pushing out Ukrainian forces out of Russian territory, it claimed.
On Saturday, Russia announced all Ukrainian troops had been removed from its Kursk region, which Moscow lost control of last year to a surprise Ukraine incursion. This claim could not be independently verified by Euronews.
Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff for Russia’s Armed Forces, had also stated that North Korean soldiers fought against Ukrainian troops in the region.
Gerasimov said that they took part in “combat missions shoulder to shoulder with Russian servicemen during the repelling of the Ukrainian incursion” and “demonstrated high professionalism, showed fortitude, courage and heroism in battle.”
Last autumn, Ukraine, the US and South Korea all said that North Korea, which previously had supplied weapons to Moscow, had deployed a 10,000-12,000 contingent to Russia to fight in Kursk.
Moscow and Pyongyang had responded vaguely to the South Korean and Western claims of the troop deployment, emphasising that their military cooperation conforms with international law, without directly admitting the presence of Pyongyang forces in Russia.
