SEOUL, South Korea — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visited a construction site in Pyongyang for a memorial dedicated to North Korean troops in Ukraine who were killed fighting alongside Russian forces, state media reported Tuesday. The visit signaled that a deployment once treated as sensitive is now being recast as proof of an ever-closer war partnership with Moscow, Jan. 6, 2026.
North Korean troops in Ukraine memorial recasts losses as “combat feats”
Kim and his daughter, Ju Ae, inspected the unfinished complex — the Memorial Museum of Combat Feats at the Overseas Military Operations — and joined a tree-planting ceremony, according to a Reuters report citing North Korean state media. KCNA quoted Kim calling the dead soldiers “heroes … who sacrificed themselves without hesitation,” and he said “no one in the world can overcome such an army that is absolutely loyal to the orders of the party.”
In a brief dispatch carried by KCNA Watch, state media framed the project as a “memorial museum” for “overseas military operations,” without directly naming Ukraine. Kim posed for photos with builders, toured the site and reviewed progress on the project, the dispatch said.
South Korea’s public broadcaster KBS reported that Kim was accompanied by his wife, Ri Sol-ju, and that state images showed him driving a forklift at the site with Ju Ae and other officials. KBS said KCNA portrayed the complex as the country’s first museum built to honor soldiers dispatched abroad, with construction launched in October.
What is known about North Korean troops in Ukraine
Neither Pyongyang nor Moscow has provided a full public accounting of the scale of North Korean troops in Ukraine. South Korean, Ukrainian and Western officials have said roughly 14,000 North Koreans were deployed under the two countries’ tightening military cooperation, and they estimate more than 6,000 were killed.
By showcasing a memorial in the capital, Kim appears to be folding North Korean troops in Ukraine into a domestic narrative of sacrifice and loyalty. Analysts have said North Korea gains battlefield experience and economic support, while Russia fills manpower gaps and taps North Korean munitions as the conflict grinds on.
The Russia pact behind the deployment
The relationship accelerated after Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a “comprehensive strategic partnership” agreement in Pyongyang that included a mutual defense clause, Reuters reported in June 2024. Russia later acknowledged the North Korean deployment and North Korea confirmed it, according to a Reuters report from April 2025.
Kim’s memorial visit follows earlier signs that the government was preparing the public for casualties. In July, images of Kim paying tribute to repatriated coffins marked a rare public acknowledgment of deaths tied to North Korean troops in Ukraine, The Guardian reported.
For now, the new memorial — and its emphasis on “overseas” combat — suggests North Korean troops in Ukraine are no longer a quietly handled episode for Pyongyang, but a centerpiece of how Kim frames his alliance with Russia to his own people.
