Putin thanks North Korea for troop deployment and promises not to forget their sacrifices

Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un pose for a photo during a signing ceremony of a new partnership in Pyongyang, North Korea, June 19, 2024. (Kristina Kormilitsyna, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)

SEOUL, South Korea — Russian President Vladimir Putin thanked North Korea Monday for fighting alongside his troops against Ukrainian forces and promised not to forget their sacrifices, hours after North Korea confirmed its deployment for the first time.

The back-to-back Russian and North Korean statements -- which illustrate their expanding military partnerships -- came two days after Russia said its troops have fully reclaimed the Kursk region that Ukrainian forces seized in a surprise incursion last year.

Ukrainian officials have denied the claim, insisting that the operation in certain areas of Kursk is continuing.

In a statement posted on the website of the Kremlin, Putin praised North Korean soldiers who he said “shoulder to shoulder with Russian fighters, defended our Motherland as their own.”

“The Russian people will never forget the heroism of the DPRK special forces. We will always honor the heroes who gave their lives for Russia, for our common freedom, fighting side by side with their Russian brothers in arms,” Putin said, using the acronym for the North’s official name.

North Korea’s first official confirmation of its troops involvement

Earlier Monday, North Korea’s Central Military Commission announced that leader Kim Jong Un had decided to send troops to Russia to “annihilate and wipe out the Ukrainian neo-Nazi occupiers and liberate the Kursk area in cooperation with the Russian armed forces.” The commission said North Korean troops eventually made “an important contribution” to Russia retrieving the border territory.

It was North Korea’s first official confirmation of its troops’ deployment to Russia though it has repeatedly expressed its unwavering support of Russia’s fighting against Ukraine. U.S., South Korean and Ukraine intelligence officials have said North Korea dispatched 10,000-12,000 troops to Russia last fall in its first participation in a major armed conflict since the 1950-53 Korean War.

Both Putin and Kim said the North Korean deployment was made under a mutual defense treaty that they had signed in June 2024. The treaty -- considered the two countries’ biggest defense agreement since the end of the Cold War -- requires both nations to use all available means to provide immediate military assistance if either is attacked.

North Korea and Russia, locked in separate disputes with the U.S. and its allies, have moved significantly closer to each other in recent years.

Beside its dispatch of troops, North Korea has been supplying a vast amount of conventional weapons to Russia. South Korea and the U.S. worry that Russia could reward North Korea by transferring high-tech weapons technologies that can enhance its nuclear weapons program as well as other military and economic assistance.

Pyongyang wants military technologies from Russia

Kim’s underscoring of North Korea’s role in the retaking of the Kursk region implies his urgent wish to get what he wants from Russia, namely its sensitive military technologies and a solid security commitment to North Korea, said Moon Seong Mook, an analyst for the Seoul-based Korea Research Institute for National Strategy.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that Russia can provide unspecified military assistance to North Korea if necessary, in accordance with the defense treaty, according to Russian state media agencies.

While Russia’s claimed recapture of the Kursk region could deprive North Korea of legitimate grounds to maintain its troops in Russia, Moon said that North Korea won’t likely pull out its troops from Russia anytime soon as the war is still going on. Moon said that North Korea could provide support to Russian forces in other regions in a different and covert manner.

Kim Yeol Soo, an expert at South Korea’s Korea Institute for Military Affairs, said North Korea also likely acknowledged its troops’ dispatch because it couldn’t hide it any longer and so determined to use it as a propaganda tool to boost internal unity. He said the North Korean announcement could also signal a prelude to Kim visiting Russia to attend ceremonies marking the May 9 Victory Day.

Neither North Korea nor Russia said how many North Korean soldiers eventually came to Russia or how many casualties they suffered. But in March, South Korea’s military assessed that around 4,000 North Korean soldiers had been killed or wounded in the Russia-Ukraine war fronts. the South Korean military also said at the time that North Korea sent about 3,000 additional troops to Russia earlier this year.

Kim Jong Un said that a monument will soon be erected in Pyongyang to mark North Korea’s battle feats and that flowers will be laid before the tombstones of the fallen soldiers. Kim said the government must take steps to preferentially treat and take care of the families of the soldiers who took part in the war.

North Korean soldiers are highly disciplined and well trained, but observers say they’ve become easy targets for drone and artillery attacks on Russian-Ukraine battlefields due to their lack of combat experience and unfamiliarity with the terrain. Still, Ukrainian military and intelligence officials have assessed that the North Koreans gained crucial battlefield experience and have been key to Russia’s strategy of overwhelming Ukraine by throwing large numbers of soldiers into the battle for Kursk.

South Korea calls for North’s immediate withdrawal from Russia

South Korea’s Unification Ministry on Monday urged North Korea to withdraw its troops from Russia immediately, saying the North’s support of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine poses a grave provocation to international security. Spokesperson Koo Byoungsam also called the North’s troops’ deployment “an act against humanity” that has sacrificed young North Korean soldiers for their government.

In a Kremlin meeting Saturday, Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff for Russia’s armed forces, informed Putin of Russia’s regaining of the Kursk region. Gerasimov was first to confirm that North Korean soldiers fought alongside Russia to repel Ukrainian troops from the Kursk region and “demonstrated high professionalism, showed fortitude, courage and heroism in battle.”

If confirmed, Russia’s victory in Kursk would deprive Ukraine of key leverage in U.S.-brokered efforts to negotiate an end to the more than 3-year-old war by exchanging its gains for some Russia-occupied land in Ukraine.

President Donald Trump said Saturday he doubts Putin wants to end the war, expressing new skepticism a peace deal can be reached soon. Only a day earlier, Trump had said Ukraine and Russia were " very close to a deal."

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By Hyung-jin Kim

Associated Press writer Dasha Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia contributed to this report.