North Korea and Russia began negotiating the deployment of North Korean troops to the war in Ukraine about a year before the two countries signed their comprehensive strategic partnership treaty, according to a report.
Japan's Sankei Shimbun reported on the 12th, citing a North Korean source who had visited the Memorial Hall of Combat Merits in Overseas Military Operations, which Pyongyang built to commemorate the deployment.
According to the source, exhibition materials at the hall state that a Russian military delegation visited North Korea in July 2023 and met with leader Kim Jong-un to request the dispatch of troops, and that discussions on sending forces to the Ukraine war gained momentum from that point.
That was about a year before North Korea signed the comprehensive strategic partnership treaty with Russia and sent soldiers to Kursk and other areas in southwestern Russia.
The memorial hall records the total number of North Korean soldiers killed after being deployed at 2,288, the source said. Headstones for 300 of the dead who were designated "heroes" stand in a cemetery next to the hall, and the remains of the other casualties are held in urns on the second and third floors, according to the source.
The headstones and urns carry each soldier's name, date of birth and cause of death, and most appeared to be young troops in their late teens or early 20s, the source said. The hall also displays documents including pledges signed by soldiers vowing not to be taken prisoner by Ukrainian forces, according to the account.
