N.KOREA’S KIM JONG WELCOMES TROOPS RETURNING FROM RUSSIA IN UKRAINE WAR

Sat 13 December 2025:

North Korea held a welcoming ceremony Friday for troops returning from Russia’s western Kursk region after completing a mine-clearance mission during the Ukraine war, state-run media reported Saturday.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un welcomed the soldiers in Pyongyang at the ceremony and paid tribute to nine personnel who were killed during the deployment, the Korean Central News Agency reported.

Pyongyang sent about 1,000 engineer troops in August to Kursk to assist Russian forces in clearing mines laid during the fighting with Ukrainian troops.

The deployment followed an earlier dispatch of an estimated 15,000 North Korean combat troops to support Russia’s war effort, according to South Korea’s spy agency.

It claimed Pyongyang lost 2,000 troops in the war.

In a lengthy address, Kim expressed relief that most had come home safely, while describing the loss of the nine as “heart rending.”

He praised the regiment’s “heroism and professionalism,” saying the troops carried out their mission in a “harsh combat environment” where every step involved danger.

Kim said the engineers transformed large mine-contaminated areas into safe zones in less than three months, crediting the achievement to collective discipline and unity, rather than individual feats.

He highlighted the soldiers’ ideological commitment, camaraderie and willingness to put comrades first under life-threatening conditions.

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Russian army recruitment for foreigners

Nearly 200 foreigners from 37 countries have been captured fighting for Russia and are currently held as prisoners of war by Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Their accounts paint a disturbing picture of the deception, bribery and blackmail they say Moscow is using to lure foreigners into joining its military.

As Russia continues to struggle to recruit its own people to fight in Ukraine, it is increasingly turning to foreigners to bolster its military.

Brigadier General Dmitry Usov, who heads the POW headquarters, said Ukraine has identified more than 18,000 foreigners from 128 countries and territories who fought or are currently fighting for Russia in Ukraine – a number that does not include the thousands of North Korean soldiers sent to fight for Russia as part of a military cooperation agreement between the two countries. The actual number of foreigners fighting for Russia is likely much higher.

The rise in the number of foreigners found fighting in Ukraine has recently prompted several countries to issue strongly worded appeals to Russia to stop recruiting their citizens.

Earlier this month, Kenya’s President William Ruto said that his government was concerned “over young Kenyans who have been illegally recruited to fight in the war.”

On the same day, South Africa’s government said it would investigate how 17 of its citizens ended up fighting in the war after the men sent distress calls for help to return home from Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, most of which is under Russian military control.

A day after that, Randhir Jaiswal, the spokesperson for India’s foreign ministry, said 44 Indian nationals were fighting for Russia, adding that the Indian government has “once again taken up the matter with the Russian authorities to have them released at the earliest, and also to put an end to this practice.” He said the Indian authorities were taking steps to prevent people from being “tricked into joining.”

Neither Russia nor Ukraine release casualty data, but Moscow stopped publishing even the most basic mortality and demographic data earlier this year, most likely to disguise the real cost of the war, analysts say.

But Western intelligence agencies believe Russia has suffered more than 1 million casualties, including more than 250,000 deaths, since February 2022. In its most recent estimate, the United Kingdom’s Defence Intelligence said that, on average, some 1,000 Russian soldiers are killed or injured every day.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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