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Russia confirms Ukraine's statements: North Korean soldiers fought side by side and shed blood with our officers in the Kursk region

Politiko 2025-04-27 15:19:02

Russia confirms Ukraine's statements: North Korean soldiers fought side by

Russia has admitted for the first time that it sent North Korean soldiers into battle to push back Ukrainian forces from the Kursk region after the Ukrainian army made a surprise incursion across the border with Russia last summer. Russia's Foreign Ministry said on Saturday it recognized the "significant contribution" of North Korean soldiers to Moscow's military efforts.

Citing the Treaty on Strategic Partnership between Russia and North Korea from December 4, 2024, the Ministry said that "a new page has been written in the glorious annals of the military brotherhood of the Russian and Korean peoples."

"The soldiers of the Korean People's Army... fought side by side, in the same trench, and shed blood with our soldiers and officers in the Kursk region and made a significant contribution to the liberation of the Russian land from the invading enemy ," she said.

General Valery Gerasimov, the chief of Russia's General Staff, told President Vladimir Putin in a video conference that North Korean soldiers had made a significant contribution to the "liberation" of the region from Ukrainian soldiers. In doing so, Russia acknowledged what Ukrainian and Western officials have long said: that Pyongyang sent thousands of soldiers to fight alongside Russian forces in Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, now in its fourth year.

US officials said more than 11,000 North Korean soldiers took part in the fighting and suffered heavy casualties. Gerasimov said the Korean mission was in line with the partnership agreement between the two countries. Russia says it has pushed Ukrainian forces back from most of Kursk, but Kiev says its forces are still in the Russian region.

There have been international concerns that Russia is providing North Korea with drone technology in exchange for significant military aid. There has also been a major strengthening of relations between Moscow and Pyongyang since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

In addition to sending soldiers, North Korea has also supplied Moscow with short-range missiles, artillery vehicles and rocket launchers, according to the South Korean military./REL

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