Kim Jong Un and Russian Minister Unveil War Memorial in Pyongyang

Kim Jong Un turned the deaths of North Korean troops in Ukraine into a public pledge of alignment with Moscow, opening a war memorial in Pyongyang alongside Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov and State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin. The ceremony at the Memorial Museum of Combat Feats at Overseas Military Operations, held on Sunday, April 26, 2026, was staged not as a private tribute but as a deliberate political signal that North Korea now presents its military sacrifice as part of a joint struggle with Russia.

North Korean state media said the event marked the one-year anniversary of the end of the operation to “liberate” Russia’s Kursk region. Kim threw dirt over the remains of one dead soldier and laid flowers before other bodies placed in a mortuary, while he, Belousov and Volodin left messages in the guest book. Kim said the dead soldiers’ spirits would remain “a symbol of the Korean people’s heroism” and support a “victorious march” by the Korean and Russian people. He also praised North Korean and Russian forces for thwarting what he called a U.S.-led Western “hegemonic plot and military adventurism” on the Russia-Ukraine front.

The memorial makes public what had already been becoming more explicit: North Korea’s wartime alignment with Russia is now part of its domestic propaganda and foreign policy messaging. Kim told Belousov that North Korea would fully support Russia’s policy of defending its sovereignty and security interests. Russian officials also used the occasion to underline the next stage of the relationship, with reports saying Belousov signaled readiness to sign a 2027-2031 military cooperation plan later this year.

Putin reinforced that message in a letter read by Volodin, calling the museum a “clear symbol” of friendship and solidarity and saying he was confident the two countries would continue strengthening their comprehensive strategic partnership. The symbolism carries added weight because the two governments have not disclosed the full scale of North Korea’s deployment. South Korea’s intelligence service has estimated that about 15,000 North Koreans were sent and about 2,000 were killed, while earlier South Korean lawmaker briefings put deaths at about 600 from the same deployment.

The opening also reflects how the war in Ukraine has broadened beyond the battlefield. North Korea and Russia said in April 2025 that their soldiers fought together to repel a Ukrainian incursion into Kursk, and both sides have since framed that campaign as a victory worth commemorating. By building a shrine to the dead in Pyongyang, Kim has gone further, making North Korea’s participation in Russia’s war a public badge of loyalty, and a warning that the conflict now has a more overtly international political dimension.