Kim Jong-un Hails North Korean Troops Fighting in Ukraine as Heroes

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has hailed his country’s troops fighting alongside Russia in the war in Ukraine as “heroes,” during a ceremony to honour soldiers who recently returned from the conflict, state media said on Friday.

In a speech this week, Kim praised his troops for displaying the “fighting spirit of the heroes” during their operation to help Russia retake the Kursk region from Ukrainian forces, who had established a foothold there last year, according to the state news agency KCNA.

“The combat activities of overseas operational forces … proved without regret the power of the heroic \[North Korean] army,” Kim said.

At the ceremony, Kim laid a flower at a memorial for North Korean soldiers who had died overseas. A concert was held to honour the returning troops, and relatives of soldiers killed in action attended a banquet, KCNA reported.

The event marked one of the most public displays of gratitude by Pyongyang, in contrast to the secrecy that surrounded North Korea’s initial deployment of troops to Russia last autumn. Kim also met with officers of the army’s overseas operation and paid tribute to those killed in Ukraine, describing their mission as the “most important duty” while offering “warm militant encouragement” to commanders and troops, the agency said.

The ceremony followed similar remarks by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who earlier this week praised North Korean troops as “heroic.” In a letter to Kim marking the anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule in August 1945, Putin recalled how Soviet and North Korean forces had once fought together to end Japan’s occupation of the Korean peninsula.

“The bonds of militant friendship, goodwill and mutual aid which were consolidated in the days of the war long ago remain solid and reliable even today,” Putin said.

Russia and North Korea have deepened military and diplomatic ties in recent years, raising international concern that North Korean troops are gaining valuable combat experience that could later be used against South Korea.

Kim and Putin signed a mutual defence pact last year, and in April North Korea confirmed for the first time that it had deployed soldiers to the frontline in Ukraine to fight alongside Russian forces.

According to South Korean and Western intelligence agencies, Pyongyang sent more than 10,000 troops to Russia’s Kursk region in 2024, along with artillery shells, missiles and long-range rocket systems. South Korean lawmakers, citing intelligence briefings, said in April that about 600 North Korean soldiers had been killed out of a total deployment of 15,000.

Yonhap news agency quoted a South Korean unification ministry official this week as saying that the tributes by Kim appeared aimed at “justifying the deployment and boosting morale.”