North Korea has opened a museum in Pyongyang dedicated to the soldiers that have been killed in the war with Ukraine, fighting alongside Russian forces, especially in the Kursk border region. The Memorial Museum of Combat Feats at the Overseas Military Operations was opened on Monday by North Korea leader Kim Jong Un, on the first anniversary of the day Russia claimed to have driven all Ukrainian forces out of the Kursk region, after a failed attempt by Ukraine to take Russian territory in the bordering Kursk Oblast.
Russian President Vladimir Putin did not attend the event, but Defence Minister Andrei Belousov and State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin were there, with Volodin reading a letter by Putin, saying that the museum is "a clear symbol of the friendship and solidarity", according to Al Jazzera. Kim Jong Un said that the fallen North Korean troops are "a symbol of the Korean people's heroism".
While North Korea hasn't disclosed figures, according to estimates by South Korea's intelligence agency, their neighbours have deployed about 15,000 soldiers to fight for Russia in the Kursk region, and 2,000 of them have been killed.
It is estimated that nearly a quarter of a million Russians have been killed in Ukraine since the war started four years ago.