Kim Jong Un Sends 6,000 More To Kursk After Massive Troop Losses In Russia

North Korea is set to send 6,000 personnel, including combat engineers and military workers, to assist in reconstruction efforts in Russia's Kursk region, according to Moscow's top security official. The announcement was made during Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu's visit to Pyongyang, marking his second meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un this month, highlighting deepening ties between the two nations. 

"Chairman of the State Affairs of the DPRK Kim Jong Un has decided to send 1,000 sappers to Russia to clear mines on Russian territory, as well as 5,000 military construction workers to restore infrastructure destroyed by the occupiers," Shoigu said, according to Russian state media TASS.

According to Shoigu, Moscow and Pyongyang also plan to create memorials for the Korean soldiers who died while liberating the Kursk Region.

"The heads of our states have decided to perpetuate the feat of the soldiers of the Korean People's Army who took part in the fighting. Specifically, we are talking about the unveiling of memorials in Russia and the DPRK in memory of the Korean soldiers who fell in the battles for the liberation of the Russian territory. In this regard, during the visit, the construction of a memorial complex with a museum in Pyongyang with the participation of the Russian side was discussed," he added.

According to news agency TASS, Shoigu is visiting Pyongyang for the third time in nearly three months. He explained this frequency by a high pace of implementation of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreement between Moscow and Pyongyang. "First of all, it is related to the intensity of implementation of this agreement, which was actually signed a year ago," he stressed.

"The pace that has been set in the implementation of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership agreement, of course, requires constant attention and regular adjustments and decision-making at all levels."

According to Business Insider, Kim initially sent some 12,000 troops in the fall of 2024 to Kursk, the oblast where Ukraine entered in August of that year and seized up to 500 square miles of Russian soil.

Aided by Pyongyang's soldiers, the Kremlin's forces recaptured almost all of those gains by March 2025, effectively ousting Ukrainian forces from the region by late spring.

On June 15, the UK Defense Ministry said in an intelligence update that it estimated that more than 6,000 North Korean troops had been killed or wounded in Kursk.