North Korea opened a North Korea museum in Pyongyang on Sunday, honouring soldiers killed while fighting alongside Russia against Ukraine, state media reported Monday. The Korean Central News Agency said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attended the inaugural ceremony with senior Russian officials, including Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of Russia’s State Duma, and Russian Defence Minister Andrei Belousov.
The memorial marked one year since the end of what Pyongyang and Moscow described as an operation to retake Russia’s Kursk border region from Ukrainian forces. North Korea and Russia announced in April 2025 that their troops had fought together in the operation.
South Korea’s intelligence service estimated last year that North Korea sent about 15,000 troops to Russia and that around 2,000 were killed. Neither Pyongyang nor Moscow has disclosed official deployment or casualty figures.
KCNA said Kim laid flowers, took part in a symbolic burial ceremony and signed a guest book at the memorial. In a speech, Kim called the dead soldiers a symbol of Korean heroism and praised joint North Korean and Russian operations against what he described as U.S.-led Western military adventurism.
🇷🇺🤝🇰🇵 A memorial complex dedicated to the soldiers of the North Korean army who died in the Kursk region has been opened in North Korea.
Also, Russia transferred several units of captured military equipment to North Korea for an exhibition. pic.twitter.com/dAaj14CAiS
— MoloMonitor 🇮🇹 (@MoloWarMonitor) April 26, 2026KCNA said Kim separately told Belousov that North Korea would fully support Russia’s policy of defending its sovereignty and security interests. Russia’s state news agency Tass cited Belousov as saying Moscow was ready to sign a Russia-North Korea military cooperation plan for 2027–2031.
Read: Kim Jong Un Pledges Support for Russia’s War at Beijing Summit
Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a letter read by Volodin, said the museum would symbolise friendship and solidarity between the two countries, KCNA reported. South Korea, the United States and their partners have raised concerns that Moscow could transfer advanced military technology to Pyongyang in return for North Korean troops and weapons support.
