"North Korea and Russia Began Troop Deployment Talks in 2023... 2,288 North Korean Soldiers Killed"

Casualty Numbers Likely Rose with Additional Troop Deployment Reported in August

It has been reported that North Korea and Russia had already been discussing the potential deployment of North Korean troops to the war in Ukraine for almost a year before officially signing their "Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty."

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Photo by Yonhap News

On September 12, the Sankei Shimbun quoted a North Korean source who visited the "Overseas Military Operations Combat Hero Memorial Hall" built in Pyongyang to honor overseas troop deployments, reporting these claims.

The source said, "The exhibition material in the memorial hall records that, when the Russian military delegation visited North Korea in July 2023 and met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, they requested troop deployment. This marked the beginning of negotiations over dispatching North Korean soldiers."

At the time, a Russian delegation led by then Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visited Pyongyang to attend North Korea's military parade. In September of that same year, Kim Jong Un visited Russia for a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, during which the two leaders reportedly agreed on critical security matters.

Subsequently, North Korea signed the "Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty" with Russia in June 2024 and dispatched troops to southwestern Russia, including the Kursk region. Based on this report, it is estimated that negotiations over troop deployment between the two countries had already begun about a year before North Korea actually sent soldiers to Russia.

According to Sankei, records at the memorial hall indicate that 2,288 North Korean soldiers have died. Sankei also added that there is information indicating North Korean missile units were additionally deployed to western Russia in August this year, suggesting that the actual number of casualties may be higher.

It is reported that a cemetery adjacent to the memorial hall contains the tombstones of 300 of those killed who were honored as "heroes." The urns with the remains of other fallen soldiers are enshrined on the second and third floors of the memorial hall. The source said that the tombstones and urns are inscribed with each deceased soldier’s name, date of birth, and cause of death, noting that most of them appear to have been young soldiers in their late teens or early twenties.

The source explained, "It is estimated that more than half of the deaths resulted from suicide bombings, and there were also many victims of drone strikes." The source also noted that the memorial hall displays a document in which a soldier pledges not to become a prisoner of war in Ukraine.

The completion ceremony for the memorial hall, built in Pyongyang last April to commemorate North Korea’s overseas troop deployments, was attended by Kim Jong Un, Vyacheslav Volodin, Speaker of Russia’s State Duma, and Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov, among others.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.