North Korea has unveiled a new memorial in its capital to honour soldiers killed in Russia, and an investigation based on satellite imagery and official photographs has roughly estimated the number of dead, the BBC reports.
In August 2024, Ukraine invaded Russian territory in the Kursk region. South Korea estimates that at least 11,000 North Koreans have been sent to Kursk to help retake the territory. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has previously publicly honoured soldiers who died fighting in Russia’s war, and Pyongyang is believed to have received food, money and technical assistance in exchange for the soldiers. The regime has not disclosed the number of those killed in Kursk, but the new memorial provides a rough estimate of how many North Koreans lost helping the Russians.
Kim Jong-un ordered the construction of the memorial to the fallen in the Russo-Ukrainian war in October 2025, and according to satellite images taken by the US company Planet Labs and analyzed by the BBC, work began on the overgrown area that same month. The outline of the complex was visible in December 2025, while most of the external structures were completed by March. In April, landscaping and surrounding buildings were completed.
The memorial was opened on the 26th of April, and, according to the state news agency KCNA, it is dedicated to the unparalleled heroism of North Korean soldiers in the liberation of the Kursk region.
The newly created memorial consists of two 30-meter-long memorial walls engraved with names,
a large building and a cemetery. Analysis of the images released by KCNA by the BBC shows that each wall is divided into about 14 sections marked with gray stone lines. Nine of the sections are engraved with names, and each has about 16 columns of names. Zooming in on the images shows that each column contains the names of eight soldiers. That means there are 1,152 names on each wall, and a total of 2,304 soldiers commemorated at the memorial. Songhak Chung, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for Security Strategies, agrees with the BBC’s calculations. He said the memorial walls are filled with the names of fallen soldiers in very fine print, and given the surface area and density of the text, the number of words runs into the thousands.
The exact number is difficult to determine because higher-resolution images are not available, but the BBC’s estimate is close to the calculations of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS). In September 2025, the NIS said that about 2,000 North Korean soldiers had been killed and about 2,700 wounded, but in February this year, the latest NIS estimate was 6,000 dead out of a total of 11,000 soldiers. Neither Pyongyang nor Moscow have provided official information on the number of dead and wounded.
The Korean research firm SI Analytics said that the memorial has a multi-tiered memorial system. This means that soldiers who have shown exceptional bravery are given a grave and a headstone outside, while the urns of the rest are placed in a columbarium. Satellite images taken by SI Analytics in early April show that
there are about 140 graves on the western side of the cemetery, and another 138 graves on the opposite side.
In the middle of the cemetery is a gray building, which Chung said is most likely a columbarium, where the urns are placed.
South Korea’s Unification Ministry said it was difficult to confirm whether all the fallen soldiers were commemorated on the memorial’s walls, but researchers said it was highly likely that all of them were. Since the memorial is intended to thank those who have sacrificed for the country and maintain public support, omitting names could cause resentment and undermine the goals.
Cho Han-bum, a senior fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification, said Pyongyang’s decision to build a memorial for its fallen soldiers reflects an effort to justify sending soldiers to Russia and the lives lost. The memorial also symbolizes Pyongyang’s desire to continue cooperation with Russia regardless of how Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine unfolds.
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