North Korea’s Acknowledgement of War Participation

On April 28, North Korea confirmed its troop deployment to Russia for the first time, both to external audiences and the domestic public. The same announcement referred to building a monument and tombstones in Pyongyang, acknowledging there were North Korean casualties. North Korea used a highly unusual “written stand,” or a written position, of the Party’s powerful Central Military Commission (CMC), speaking to the singular circumstances and sensitivities of an important military issue. This announcement was made just two days after Russia publicly acknowledged the North Korean military’s participation in an operation that allegedly “liberated” Russia’s Kursk region from Ukrainian forces. North Korea’s acknowledgement was followed by the Russian president’s statement on this same topic the following day, showing how well Pyongyang and Moscow choreographed their statements.

North Korea’s latest move appears aimed at justifying its military involvement in Russia’s war against Ukraine and further elevating ties with Moscow, including military, indicating North Korea will continue to prioritize strengthening its relations with Russia at least for the foreseeable future. However, the framing of the war is notable. Instead of the usual formula of criticizing the United States and the West in connection to the war, including Ukraine’s operations in Kursk, this announcement omits any direct reference to the US. This does not mean a change in policy toward the United States, but it is consistent with North Korea’s toned-down anti-US rhetoric in recent months.

Significance

There are three points about the North Korean announcement that are of particular note.

First, one recurring theme is justifying the necessity of North Korea’s military participation. The North noted that Ukraine’s aggression against Russia was a “threat” and a “grave challenge” to not just Russia, but both countries. Apparently to increase the legitimacy of its military actions, North Korea noted that they were conducted “within the territory of the Russian Federation” to “liberate” Kursk. The announcement also made it clear that Kim Jong Un himself ordered North Korean troops’ participation after determining that the situation in Kursk met the criteria for invoking Article 4 of the 2024 North Korea-Russia treaty.[1]

The reference to paying proper respects to fallen North Korean soldiers and their families—elevated by a direct quote from Kim Jong Un—indicates that admitting the troop dispatch and appeasing affected families (and boosting the morale of the military) were high priorities for Pyongyang and possibly a reason for the acknowledgement. News about the troop dispatch and casualties reportedly had spread throughout North Korea within months after the first troop dispatch in October 2024.

Second, the public acknowledgement enables North Korea to further cement what it calls an “alliance” with Russia, including military cooperation, building on the milestone of Putin’s visit to Pyongyang and the signing of the new treaty in June 2024. North Korea claimed that the liberation of Kursk “demonstrated the highest strategic level of the firm militant friendship between the DPRK and Russia and the alliance and fraternal relations between the peoples of the two countries.” Internationally, the acknowledgment officially establishes North Korea as Russia’s comrade-in-arms in an anti-West war to safeguard “justice.” This is reflected in the CMC’s claim that the North Korean and Russian armies were able to reclaim Kursk “while shedding blood fighting in the same trench shoulder to shoulder.” At home, North Korea can play this up as a major diplomatic achievement for Kim as the country heads into the Ninth Party Congress, presumably in early 2026.

Third, the CMC announcement notably omitted any direct reference to the United States, blaming only the West and “the imperialist powers” for enabling Ukraine. This stands in stark contrast to North Korea’s consistent criticism of “the United States and the West” for the Russian war against Ukraine, going back to its initial support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and its first authoritative reaction to Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk in August 2024. This is in line with North Korea’s recent trend of modulating anti-US rhetoric in an apparent attempt to create diplomatic maneuverability vis-à-vis the new Trump administration.

Acknowledgment: The Context

Prior to this CMC “written stand,” the closest thing to a North Korean acknowledgement came shortly after it sent the first batch of troops in October 2024. A vice foreign minister neither confirmed nor denied the troop dispatch in a pronouncement, which was not carried for domestic consumption despite North Korean domestic media providing more details about and expressing support for Russia’s war against Ukraine since 2024.

The North, however, has been paving the way for acknowledging troop deployment and even casualties if need be. In his unusually long and detailed comments about the war in Ukraine to the visiting Russian defense minister in November 2024, Kim said North Korea, including its military, would support Russia’s fight against “the imperialists’ moves for hegemony.” Fight against imperialism is a prevalent theme in North Korean propaganda, and Kim’s words seemed to help to frame North Korean soldiers’ losses in the Russian war as part of an honorable anti-imperialist fight. Kim’s rare New Year’s greetings to Putin indicated a new level of military-to-military relationship between the two countries. In a speech to the Ministry of National Defense in February 2025 that included an unusually long passage on the Russo-Ukraine conflict, Kim reiterated that North Korea’s support for the Russian army and people was “in keeping with the spirit of the treaty.” If the audience was not already aware, this probably raised questions about North Korea’s military involvement in the war. If nothing else, North Korea provided the full text of the new treaty when it was signed in June. Given all these signals, North Korea’s participation in the war should not have been a complete surprise to the population.

Conclusion

While there are multiple apparent reasons for North Korea’s formal acknowledgement of its direct involvement in Russia’s war, the questions remains: why reveal it now? There was probably a combination of factors at play. One possibility is an attempt to better control the narrative and preempt rumors from further spreading among the domestic population. Another is to build up North Korea’s international profile and emphasize Kim Jong Un’s diplomatic achievements at home ahead of a potential visit by Kim to Moscow during or around the time of Russia’s upcoming Victory Day. Regardless of what the reason may be, North Korea seems poised to continue elevating its relations with Russia. In that vein, the CMC’s pledge to “invariably and fully support the sacred cause of the Russian army and people in the future, too, and remain faithful as ever to any action based on the spirit of the DPRK-Russia treaty” sounds ominous.

1. [1]

   Article 4 stipulates: “In case any one of the two sides is put in a state of war by an armed invasion from an individual state or several states, the other side shall provide military and other assistance with all means in its possession without delay in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter and the laws of the DPRK and the Russian Federation.”