Russia and North Korea finally admit that Kim Jong Un's troops were fighting Ukraine

Matthew Loh
Sun, April 27, 2025

Moscow and Pyongyang have confirmed that North Korean troops are fighting in Russia's war.


It's the first time either government has admitted to Kim Jong Un sending soldiers to fight Ukraine.


Both praised North Korean and Russian troops as fighting "shoulder to shoulder" against Kyiv.

Moscow and Pyongyang have, for the first time, officially acknowledged that North Korean troops are fighting in Russia's war against Ukraine.

It's been widely reported for months that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had sent thousands of his elite troops to assist Russian ground assaults in Kursk.

But Russia and North Korea remained silent on the matter even as evidence mounted of Pyongyang's direct involvement, until now.

On Saturday, the Kremlin quoted Valery Gerasimov, the chief of staff of Russia's armed forces, thanking North Korean troops at a meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

"I would like to separately note the participation of the servicemen of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the liberation of the border areas of the Kursk region," he said in Russian.

Gerasimov praised Pyongyang's troops as showing "courage and heroism," and said they had been "performing combat missions shoulder to shoulder with Russian servicemen."

On Monday morning, Pyongyang time, North Korea issued its own official recognition of its troops' fighting against Ukraine.

State media wrote that North Korean combat units had "participated in the operations for liberating the Kursk areas."

The North Korean report used similar wording to Gerasimov, writing that its troops had been "shedding blood in the same trench shoulder to shoulder" with Russian forces.

Neither the Kremlin nor Pyongyang outlined specific plans for any further involvement of North Korean troops in the war.

However, North Korean state media added that Kim was "determined to make the combat sub-units of our armed forces participate in the war." Kim further described strengthening ties with Russia as a "sacred mission."

North Korea's direct involvement in hostilities in Ukraine has been widely interpreted as a significant escalation to the war, and there are fears that Pyongyang's troops, who have so far been seen fighting in Russia's Kursk region, could be used to fight on Ukraine's sovereign territory.

That could create spill-over effects for South Korea's military, as well.

As reports first emerged in the fall of 2024 that Russia was receiving direct assistance from Pyongyang, South Korea had said it may consider sending lethal aid to Ukraine, which stands to pull Asia further into the war.

Ukrainian reports estimate that about 14,000 North Korean troops were sent to fight in Kursk. Many were likely killed or wounded as they were deployed in high-attrition infantry assaults.


Seoul and Washington have also repeatedly voiced concerns that North Korean troops are gaining valuable combat experience, such as lessons on how to deal with drones, from fighting in a modern war against Ukraine.

Both Gerasimov and North Korean state media reported that Kursk, which Ukraine invaded in a surprise attack in the summer of last year, had been effectively cleared of Kyiv's forces.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, however, posted on social media on Sunday that Ukraine was still fighting at "defensive positions" in Kursk.

Business Insider

Ukraine said 120,000 useless mortar rounds were sent to its front line after a manufacturer tried to cut costs

Matthew Loh

Tue, April 29, 2025 

• Ukraine said it uncovered a conspiracy that ended with 120,000 bad mortar shells sent to its troops.

• Its security service said a defense plant had tried to cut costs by knowingly using cheap parts.

• Officials made four arrests as Ukraine remains hard-pressed to keep its ammo supplies flowing.

Ukraine's internal security bureau said on Tuesday that it had detained four people after investigating the supply of 120,000 defective mortar shells to its troops.

The Security Service of Ukraine, also known as the SBU, wrote on its Telegram channel that the people arrested included a military official, a quality control official, and two heads of a defense manufacturing business.

The announcement came six months after Ukrainian media reported complaints from some frontline units that their 120 mm mortar shells weren't firing or would fail to explode.

In a video that went viral in November, one soldier said only about one in 10 rounds would make it out of its launcher and detonate effectively. At the time, Ukrainian journalists reported that up to 100,000 shells were due to be recalled.

The SBU said it investigated a defense plant in the Dnipropetrovsk region, home to the key city of Dnipro, and found that the four people arrested had conspired to "supply defective mortar shells to the frontline."

"For mass production, the suspects used substandard materials and performed faulty workmanship, causing the main charge primer to fail and resulting in unstable performance of the entire propellant charge," the SBU's statement said.

The security service didn't name the arrested persons, but it accused all four of conspiring to "reduce production costs to increase their profits."

The SBU said the military and quality control officials "deliberately ignored" the defective ammunition and falsified records to cover up the scheme.

"Consequently, 120,000 unusable shells reached the front line," it added. If found guilty, the four detainees face up to 15 years in prison, the SBU said.

Artillery ammunition has been especially key to Ukraine's defense as the war has dragged into an extended battle of attrition. One of Kyiv's most pressing issues is the war's strain on the number of soldiers it can field at a time, and it faces a dilemma of whether to lower its draft requirements to include men as young as 18.

But Ukraine is also trying to prevent a shortage of ammunition, which Europe and the US have been working in overdrive to supply. Amid the rush, Kyiv has been trying to boost its local defense manufacturing scene, which is already cranking out millions of first-person view drones.

 Business Insider