Why Russia’s Foreign Minister Just Thanked the ‘Heroic Korean People’s Army’ For Saving Kursk

During a three day visit to the North Korean capital Pyongyang, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov expressed thanks for the support of the Korean People’s Army in expelling Ukrainian and supporting Western forces from the Russian Kursk region. Ukrainian forces supported by Western volunteer and contractor units launched their first protected assault into internationally recognised Russian territory in August 2024, and were expelled only in April the following year. The operation sparked considerable criticisms from both sides, in the West for leaving a large Ukrainian force exposed and far from support leading to it taking tremendous casualties for little gain, and in Russia for leaving the country’s borders inadequately defended and thus placing a large civilian population in harm’s way. The Russian Defence Ministry estimated that Ukrainian forces took 76,000 casualties during the eight month assault, with Western estimates citing lower but still catastrophic figures.

During a meeting with North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui at the Wonsan Kalma resort, Minister Lavrov observed regarding the contribution of North Korean personnel: “the heroic soldiers of the the Korean People’s Army together with the Russian servicemen brought closer the liberation of Kursk Region with the cost of their blood and even their lives.”During a press conference with Russian journalists later in the day, he again thanked Pyongyang for its contribution to freeing Kursk from “the Ukrainian Neo-Nazis and foreign mercenaries.” Russian state sources have frequently referred to Ukraine as a being run by a Neo-Nazi regime, although such claims have been dismissed in the West as propaganda aiming to vilify the Ukrainian state. The foreign minister added that monument to the Korean People’s Army personnel who fought in Kursk would be erected in Russia, under an initiative that was “fully backed by our North Korean friends.”

Regarding the origins of the initiative to send Korean People’s Army units to Kursk, Lavrov noted that this was first proposed by the Chairman of the Korean Workers’ Party Kim Jong Un. “We had no reason to refuse this sincere manifestation of solidarity, and we proceed from the fact that North Korea itself determines the forms in which it implements our agreement on strategic partnership,” he said. The securing of Kursk has been key to allowing the Russian Army to allocate more forces to the frontlines, with the availability of manpower expected to further improve as North Korea deploys further forces to the theatre, according to estimates by the South Korean National Intelligence Service. Commander of Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence Directorate Lieutenant General Kyrylo Budanov has particularly singled out the performance of North Korean 170mm self-propelled howitzers, lamenting the serious complications which these guns’ combination of long range and high precision had had for Ukrainian forces. Neither Russia’s defence sector, nor the Western defence sectors supplying Ukraine, produce comparably long ranged howitzers.

Alongside personnel contributions, North Korean armaments have come to be relied on extremely heavily by the Russian Armed Forces, with its artillery forces in particular being several times as large allowing it by some estimates to supply more ammunition than the Russian defence sector is itself able to. By the second quarter of 2025, nearly half of artillery rounds used by the Russian Army were of North Korean origin, with many Russian artillery units having come to rely almost entirely on ammunition supplied by North Korea. By then at least six Russian Army artillery units sourced between 50 and 100 percent of their munitions from the country. These supplies have been supplemented by the dispatch of Korean People’s Army artillery units, including 170mm self-propelled artillery, to support the Russian Army on the frontlines from late 2024.