Kim Jong Un Opens Pyongyang Memorial Honoring North Korean Soldiers Killed Fighting With Russia in Ukraine

North Korea opened a memorial monument in Pyongyang honoring its soldiers killed while taking part alongside Russia in the war against Ukraine, with leader Kim Jong Un attending a ceremony marked as the one-year anniversary of the end of the Kursk region liberation operation.

The North Korean Central News Agency said the leaders of Pyongyang and Russia pledged to devote more effort to strengthening cooperation during the event, which also drew a Russian delegation including State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin and Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov.

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In filmed footage described by Al Arabiya, Kim Jong Un buried the remains of a soldier killed in Russia by scattering dirt with his hands, and the ceremony praised soldiers who sacrificed themselves during combat operations in the Kursk region of Russia.

The BBC reported that a new memorial in Pyongyang’s Hwasong district was unveiled on 26 April and aims to convey the "unrivalled bravery" of North Korean soldiers during their deployment to "liberate [the] Kursk region".

Reuters said the opening ceremony emphasized the need to strengthen relations between Pyongyang and Moscow to become an "impregnable fortress."

North Korea reaffirmed its support for Russia’s war against Ukraine, with KCNA quoted by multiple outlets saying Kim told Andrei Belousov that "North Korea will support, as always, the policy of the Russian Federation in defending national sovereignty, territorial integrity, and security interests."

The BBC investigation said the secretive regime has never disclosed the death toll of the operation in Kursk, but a memorial offers observable clues, estimating that about 2,300 North Korean soldiers have died fighting for Russia against Ukraine.

BBC

In Germany, BBC reported that German Chancellor Friedrich Merz stressed that strengthening Ukraine's ties with the European Union represents 'an important condition for ending the war waged against it by Russia,' while also saying part of Ukrainian territory may be outside Kyiv's sovereignty under a future peace agreement.

In Washington, Al Jazeera’s account of U.S. President Donald Trump said he told Fox News' The Sunday Briefing that he is having 'good talks' with Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskiy as part of his effort to end the war.

The BBC also cited South Korea’s intelligence estimates, saying the NIS updated its figure to about 6,000 of the estimated 11,000 deployed to Russia being killed or wounded, while Reuters and other reports described different death tolls for the wider conflict context.

The memorial’s details, as analyzed by the BBC, include two 30m (98ft) long memorial walls engraved with names, a building, and a cemetery, with BBC calculation suggesting 2,304 names across both memorial walls.

The BBC investigation also reported that in September 2025 South Korea's National Intelligence Service said about 2,000 North Korean soldiers had been killed and another 2,700 wounded, and then by February the NIS updated the figure to about 6,000 of the estimated 11,000 deployed being killed or wounded.

South Korea’s Ministry of Unification told the BBC it is "difficult to confirm" if all the soldiers who were killed have been memorialised on the walls, while researcher Kim said it is highly likely the names of all North Korean troops who died in Kursk have been inscribed.

The BBC described a "tiered system of commemoration" in which soldiers honored with outdoor graves and tombstones are distinguished from others commemorated in urns inside a columbarium, and it reported that Chung said the columbarium appears to be a three-storey building able to house at least 1,000 sets of remains.

With North Korea and Russia signing a military treaty in 2024 obliging assistance "without delay" if attacked, the memorial’s public messaging and the competing death estimates leave the conflict’s human cost and alliance commitments tightly bound together in the sources’ accounts.