At the unveiling of a towering bronze statue depicting North Korean and Russian soldiers in combat, Kim Jong Un praised soldiers who chose death over captivity during combat in Ukraine. This was a surprising and unusual acknowledgment of North Korea’s long-suspected battlefield doctrine.
According to a transcript published by North Korean state media KCNA, Kim declared that those who “chose suicide bombing without hesitation” showed the highest loyalty, referring to soldiers who throw themselves into grenades and explosives or detonate them without risking capture.
Mr. Kim made the remarks at the opening ceremony of a vast new memorial complex on the outskirts of the capital, walking past rows of freshly laid graves before kneeling to pour soil into a public burial site. Inside, bronze statues and black marble walls inscribed with names surround displays of soldiers’ remains, personal artifacts, and captured military equipment. Part cemetery, part museum, the site is at the center of a broader campaign to cast the deaths of North Korean soldiers in Russia’s war against its neighbor as an act of heroism and patriotic sacrifice.
For months, North Korea’s state media has provided graphic and often graphic accounts of how these soldiers died. Previous reports have suggested that soldiers detonated grenades when surrounded, shouted for their comrades to stand down before setting off a bomb, and committed suicide after being wounded to avoid capture. In one account, soldiers hugged each other before detonating their explosives.
Intelligence agencies, Ukrainian officials, and defectors have long reported that North Korean soldiers are expected to take their own lives rather than be captured. North Korea did not recognize it. Today, this doctrine is publicly supported at the highest level, in facilities built to commemorate the fallen.
The monument provides one of the clearest indications yet of the scale of North Korea’s involvement in Russia’s war. An analysis by NK News found that two black marble walls within the complex are inscribed with the names of 2,288 soldiers believed to have died in the battle, along with 271 graves and a columbarium housing more than 1,700 cremated remains. The complex has expanded walls and empty space for future tombs, suggesting this is not the final chapter.
South Korean and Western officials estimate that more than 10,000 North Korean troops have been sent to Russia’s Kursk region, with thousands of casualties, but North Korea has so far not publicly acknowledged its losses.
Unveiled to coincide with the first anniversary of Russia’s declaration of victory at Kursk, with Moscow officials in attendance and a message from President Vladimir Putin read out, the complex also displays captured military equipment, including German Leopard tanks, American Abrams tanks and what appears to be other NATO-origin systems, but analysts question whether the North Korean military acquired them directly.
It is known that a small number of North Korean soldiers were captured alive by Ukrainian forces. Some said they did not know they would be sent into battle until just before the deployment, and at least one expressed regret not for being captured, but for not taking his own life.
Their presence poses a problem for North Korea. Under international law, prisoners of war are normally repatriated at the end of hostilities. But human rights activists warn that sending them back to North Korea could expose them to severe punishment. South Korean officials have said they will accept any soldiers who seek to defect, raising legal and diplomatic dilemmas that could prolong the fighting itself.
