SEOUL, South Korea — Kim Jong Un welcomed home a North Korean army engineering regiment in Pyongyang after a 120-day deployment in Russia’s Kursk region, saying the unit cleared minefields and that nine soldiers were killed, state media reported Saturday. The rare admission that North Korea troops in Russia were operating in a frontline border region shows Pyongyang is now openly attaching prestige to Moscow’s war effort, Dec. 13, 2025.
North Korea troops in Russia: Kursk mine-clearing mission and the nine honored
According to a Reuters report, the 528th Regiment of Engineers of the Korean People’s Army was dispatched in early August and carried out “combat and engineering tasks” in Kursk, including mine-clearing. State video showed Kim embracing returning troops, including injured soldiers in wheelchairs.
Kim called the nine deaths a “heartrending loss” and announced high-profile honors: the regiment received the Order of Freedom and Independence, while the fallen were posthumously named Heroes of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, KCNA said.
The disclosure also underlines how little can be independently verified about North Korea troops in Russia. Reuters cited South Korean, Ukrainian and Western sources estimating roughly 14,000 North Korean soldiers were sent to fight alongside Russian forces in Kursk and that more than 6,000 were killed — estimates that dwarf the nine deaths Kim tied to this unit.
Why Kim is talking now
Channel News Asia reported that Kim cast the Kursk assignment as a feat of loyalty, saying the engineers wrote “letters to their hometowns and villages” during breaks in mine-clearing work and displayed “mass heroism” almost every day.
An Agence France-Presse account published by the South China Morning Post noted that Russia’s Defense Ministry said last month North Korean forces were playing an important role in clearing mines in Kursk. Analysts cited by AFP said Russia is believed to be offering North Korea financial aid, military technology, food and energy supplies in return.
Al Jazeera reported that the Pyongyang event — public embraces for injured troops and a tribute to the fallen — is part of a push to normalize North Korea troops in Russia as national heroes rather than a shadow force operating abroad.
How we got here: a short timeline
Ukraine said it captured two North Korean soldiers fighting for Russia in Kursk in January, according to The Associated Press.
South Korea’s National Intelligence Service later said North Korean units appeared to have been pulled from front-line fighting in Kursk after heavy losses, The Guardian reported.
The strategic groundwork was laid in 2024, when Russia and North Korea signed a mutual defense treaty and pledged deeper military cooperation, as detailed by Arms Control Today.
Kim’s mine-clearing reveal is significant less for confirming that North Korea troops in Russia exist — that has been widely reported — than for putting a unit name, a mission and a death toll on the record. If Pyongyang keeps naming units and honoring losses, North Korea troops in Russia may become a narrative to be marketed, not a secret to be managed.
