Russian President Vladimir Putin thanked North Korean troops for fighting Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk region, after Pyongyang officially confirmed its involvement in the war on Monday.
North Korea officially confirms troop deployment to fight with Russia against Ukraine
Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un pose for a photo during a signing ceremony of the new partnership in Pyongyang on 19 June 2024
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Pool Sputnik Kremlin via AP Photo
Putin expressed gratitude to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and praised the “heroism, excellent training and dedication” of North Korean soldiers, who fought “shoulder to shoulder with Russian soldiers, defending our Motherland as their own”, he said in a statement from the Kremlin on Monday.
North Korea's acknowledgment of the troop deployment came just two days after Russia announced it had fully reclaimed the Kursk region, at the border with Ukraine.
Ukraine had seized territory in the Kursk area after a surprise incursion launched in August 2024. Ukrainian officials deny Russia's claim that it has fully recaptured the region.
"The operation to liberate Kursk by repelling the adventurous invasion of Russia by Ukraine was successfully concluded”, Pyongyang said in a statement carried by state media.
The troops "made an important contribution in annihilating and wiping out the Ukrainian neo-Nazi occupiers by displaying mass heroism, unmatched bravery and self-sacrifice", the statement read, reclaiming Russia's baseless narrative, used as a justification for the invasion, that Ukraine needed to be "denazified."
US, South Korean and Ukrainian intelligence have said that North Korea dispatched between 10,000 and 12,000 soldiers in Ukraine last autumn.
The deployment marked North Korea’s first participation in a major armed conflict since the end of the Korean War in 1953.
Kim Jong Un decided to send troops to Russia under a mutual defence treaty signed with President Putin in June 2024, according to North Korean state media.
The treaty requires both nations to use all available means to provide immediate military assistance if either is attacked.
North Korea did not confirm how many soldiers it had sent to Russia or how many had died. In March, South Korea’s military assessed that around 4,000 North Korean soldiers had been killed or wounded in Russia's war against Ukraine.