Kim Jong-un made the announcement at a groundbreaking ceremony for a monument to the country’s troops that have died fighting in Russia’s Kursk region.
North Korea’s military relationship with Russia will “advance non-stop” North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said on Oct. 24, according to state media outlet Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
Kim made the remarks in a speech at the groundbreaking ceremony for a memorial for North Korean soldiers who fought alongside Moscow’s forces in the Kursk region of Russia during the ongoing war in Ukraine.
“The DPRK-Russia friendship, which has increased its eternal vitality and the invincibility and power of which have been verified amid the grave tempest of history, is now rising to its historic peak,” Kim said.
“The years of militant fraternity, in which a guarantee has been provided for the long-term development of the bilateral friendship at the cost of precious blood, will advance non-stop with the ennobling soul of the great heroes, and more honorable pages of strength and victory will be added to the great chronicles of bilateral ties between the two countries, both just and powerful.”
He added that “Pyongyang will always be with Moscow.”
The event was the latest tribute by the communist state to its troops who fought alongside Russia’s armed forces.
Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a mutual defense pact in 2024, which stated that “in the event that either party is in a state of war as a result of armed aggression by individual or multiple states, the other side shall provide military and other assistance without delay by all means at its disposal in accordance with Article 51 of the U.N. Charter.”
This agreement has seen Pyongyang send soldiers, ammunition, and missiles to Russia as it continues its war against Ukraine.
The Pentagon estimates North Korea has deployed between 11,000 and 12,000 troops to fight in the war in return for economic and military technology assistance from Russia.
Seoul’s intelligence agency estimated in September that about 2,000 North Korean soldiers had been killed in the fighting.
The ceremony follows Pyongyang’s test-firing of multiple short-range ballistic missiles on Oct. 22, according to South Korea’s military.
By Guy Birchall
