North Korea releases propaganda video praising its soldiers who fought for Russia

North Korea leader Kim Jong Un makes an inspection visit ahead of his planned trip to Beijing for China's military parade on Sept. 1, 2025.. (Korean Central News Agency / Korea News Service / AP via CNN Newsource)

Just days before Kim Jong Un is due to stand with Russia’s Vladimir Putin to witness a display of China’s military might, North Korea has released a propaganda film praising its troops’ efforts fighting for Russia in its war against Ukraine.

The 20-minute video, released by North Korean state media KCTV, showed heavily dramatized shots of soldiers on the snow-covered battlefield – handling weapons, holding meetings with Russian soldiers, and installing bombs on trees.

It also showed aerial footage purporting to show damage inflicted by North Korean soldiers, with clips of explosions and targeted strikes.

Other parts of the video emphasized the soldiers’ patriotism – with one shot appearing to show soldiers gazing at a framed portrait of Kim, and another showing a soldier pressing his cheek to the North Korean flag.

It’s unclear how much of the footage is authentic, or whether it has been staged or manipulated, as is common in North Korean propaganda. CNN cannot independently verify when and where the videos were filmed.

“They’re presenting their participation in the Ukrainian war as a major exploit, as another confirmation of (North Korea’s) military might and their loyalty to the party, state and the leader himself,” said Andrei Lankov, a professor of Korean Studies at Kookmin University in Seoul.

The video offers a rosy view of the situation on the ground in a theatre that has become notorious for human wave attacks and horrific attrition rates on the Russian side. Western officials estimated that a third of the 12,000 North Korea troops believed to be part of the initial deployment were either killed or wounded.

The program, initially shrouded in secrecy, was later confirmed by both Pyongyang and Moscow. In recent weeks, Kim finally acknowledged the loss of troops, holding two events in August to meet bereaved families.

Last Friday, he promised “a beautiful life” for the families of “martyrs” who perished fighting for Russia, state media reported. Earlier in August, he said his “heart aches,” with state media photos showing the leader embracing sobbing families and kneeling before the portraits of deceased soldiers.

The propaganda video on Sunday paid tribute to these soldiers too, beginning with a statement that troops had participated in operations to “liberate” the Russian region of Kursk in October 2024 after Ukraine’s surprise offensive. It also named some fallen soldiers and described how they had died.

For decades, North Korean propaganda has emphasized the significance of its military but “had very little real actual stuff to talk about,” said Lankov, pointing to its previous lack of real battlefield experience.

“Now, they’ve had a real war where, generally speaking, North Korean soldiers were fighting quite well,” he added. “It’s understandable that it’s likely to become a major topic of their domestic propaganda, domestic ideological education and indoctrination.”

North Korea has drawn closer to Russia since the war began, with experts warning that Moscow may be offering military and technological assistance to Pyongyang in exchange for its troops.

Visit to Beijing

Both Kim and Russian leader Vladimir Putin will be in Beijing on Wednesday for a massive military parade to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II – setting the stage for a striking show of unity between the two autocrat leaders and China’s Xi Jinping.

The trip will be Kim’s first trip to China since 2019. Kim, who has only embarked on 10 foreign trips since assuming power in 2011, last left his isolated country in 2023 to meet Putin at a remote spaceport in Russia’s far east.

Hong Min, a senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul, said North Korea could have released the video ahead of the Beijing visit to portray Kim as “an important leader with a strategic position in Northeast Asia that is on par with Putin and Xi Jinping at the Victory Day (parade).”

It would further the narrative that North Korea is “forming a solidarity front with powerful countries on the diplomatic stage,” Hong added.

On Sunday, Kim also examined missiles on a “newly inaugurated” production line and learned about the “overall condition of the state missile production capacity,” state media KCNA reported on Monday.

Images published by KCNA appeared to show Kim at an undisclosed location inspecting several dozen weapons in various stages of production and talking with uniformed officers.

According to the KCNA report, North Korea had “successfully fulfilled” its five-year plan to expand its missile production capacity.

“Various kinds of missiles were put into serial production,” the agency reported, adding that Kim had ratified three new long-term plans “related to missile production capacity.”

North Korea has ramped up its weapons program in the last few years, rapidly modernizing its armed forces, developing new weapons and testing intercontinental ballistic missiles that can reach almost anywhere in the United States.

Kim has also ramped up his rhetoric, vowing recently to build up the country’s nuclear program and threatening to use it to destroy South Korea if attacked.

Jessie Yeung, Billy Stockwell and Gawon Bae, CNN