A North Korean military engineering unit was deployed for four months to demin the Russian Kursk region. Nine soldiers were killed, state media in Pyongyang reported on Saturday (December 13, 2025).
According to North Korea’s KCNA news agency, leader Kim Jong-un on Friday led a welcoming ceremony for soldiers of the 528th Engineer Regiment who spent 120 days in Kursk, a region partially occupied by Ukrainian forces between August 2024 and spring 2025.
During the event, Kim announced “the painful loss of nine lives” during the operation.
An “eternal tribute” to the fallen
The North Korean president awarded the nine victims the title of “Heroes of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” and other awards to “permanently honor their bravery,” KCNA added.
Kim expressed “the pain of having waited 120 days without forgetting a single moment about her beloved children.”
North Korea has sent thousands of soldiers to fight for Moscow as it continues its nearly four-year invasion of Ukraine, according to South Korean and Western intelligence agencies.
In June, Russia announced the deployment of 1,000 engineer soldiers and about 5,000 North Korean workers to “reconstruct” Kursk, which was recovered from Ukraine two months earlier by Moscow forces with the help of a contingent from the Asian country.
The involvement of these soldiers in demining operations was confirmed with photographs by the official newspaper of the Russian Defense Ministry in November.
Both countries are linked by a mutual defense agreement that was signed in 2024 on the occasion of a visit to North Korea by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
gs (afp, reuters, KCNA)
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