{"id":12490,"date":"2026-04-28T14:18:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T14:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/12490\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T14:18:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T14:18:14","slug":"north-korea-is-honoring-some-of-its-soldiers-killed-in-the-ukraine-war-but-what-about-the-rest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/12490\/","title":{"rendered":"North Korea Is Honoring Some Of Its Soldiers Killed In The Ukraine War. But What About The Rest?"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n
\n
\n Photo: KCNA VIA KNS (Reuters)
\n \n <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n


\n North Korea Is Honoring Some Of Its Soldiers Killed In The Ukraine War. But What About The Rest? \n <\/p>\n

As the sun set during an April 26 ceremony opening a memorial to North Korean troops killed in the Ukraine war, \u201ccountless white balloons of remembrance\u201d floated into the sky from grave sites to approximately 280 soldiers.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"White<\/p>\n


\n
\n White balloons are released from around the graves of North Korean soldiers during the April 26 opening of the Memorial Museum of Combat Feats in Overseas Military Operations.
\n <\/p>\n

Those graves, surrounding Pyongyang’s new Memorial Museum of Combat Feats in Overseas Military Operations, represent a fraction of approximately 2,000 soldiers that South Korean intelligence says<\/a> fell during the campaign to drive Ukrainian forces out of Russia\u2019s Kursk region.<\/p>\n

North Korea had earlier commemorated just 101 soldiers<\/a> fallen in the military campaign in western Russia. Neither Pyongyang nor Moscow have released casualty figures from the Kursk campaign.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Memorial<\/p>\n


\n
\n Memorial Museum of Combat Feats in Overseas Military Operations
\n <\/p>\n

Naoko Aoki<\/a>, a political scientist with the RAND think tank, told RFE\/RL that the relatively small number of soldiers being publicly memorialized in North Korea are likely from the most obedient echelon of a rigid social hierarchy<\/a> in the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cNorth Korea has a social classification system called songbun, which categorizes people into groups based on their forbears\u2019 loyalty to the regime,\u201d the North Korea expert told RFE\/RL.<\/p>\n

“This determines one\u2019s access to everything from food, education, and work,\u201d she said, adding \u201cI think we can assume that those who are memorialized, like the 101 soldiers honored in a ceremony last August, are from a class that the regime considers reliable.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sprawling memorial facility has been built opposite apartment blocks, which North Korean state media claim was built for the families<\/a> of soldiers killed in Russia.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n


\n
\n A frame grab from a first-person-view drone purportedly showing a North Korean soldier in Russia\u2019s Kursk region in 2025.
\n <\/p>\n

Between late 2024 and June 2025, North Korea sent an estimated<\/a> 14,000-15,000 troops to help fight off a Ukrainian occupation of Russia’s Kursk region amid the Kremlin’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Both Moscow and Pyongyang initially denied reports that North Koreans were fighting Ukrainian forces, but, in April 2025, both acknowledged the presence of the Asian troops on Russian soil. Pyongyang has since made the chapter a propaganda focal point inside the authoritarian country.<\/p>\n

Aoki says that “given the number of soldiers involved, keeping this secret was going to be difficult, even for North Korea.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"North<\/p>\n


\n
\n North Korean leader Kim Jong Un viewing a diorama depicting North Korean troops fighting in Russia\u2019s Kursk region inside the Pyongyang memorial during its construction in early April.
\n <\/p>\n

Aoki says Pyongyang\u2019s decision to lavishly commemorate the fallen soldiers is a message directed, in part, toward the Kremlin. \u201cFor Russia in particular, this is yet another reminder of how much North Korea has done for the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a speech during the opening ceremony, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un hailed \u201ca new history of friendship between Korea and Russia written in blood.\u201d According to North Korean state media, Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed a letter to Kim, calling the new memorial “a distinct symbol of the friendship and unity between the peoples of our two countries.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"North<\/p>\n


\n
\n North Korean leader Kim Jong Un walks Russian State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin (center) and Russian Defense Minister Andrei Beloussov past a display of drones at the Pyongyang memorial on April 26.
\n <\/p>\n

In return for sending its soldiers, it is believed Pyongyang has received cash, food, and technical assistance.<\/p>\n

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently claimed<\/a> thousands of North Korean troops remained in Russia as of February. Only two North Koreans have been captured alive by Kyiv, and both are currently being held in Ukraine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Photo: KCNA VIA KNS (Reuters) \u00a0 North Korea Is Honoring Some Of Its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12491,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[242,7054,5,245,105,25],"class_list":{"0":"post-12490","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-features","9":"tag-photo-galleries","10":"tag-russia","11":"tag-russia-invades-ukraine","12":"tag-the-rundown-stories","13":"tag-ukraine"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}