SEOUL
\nNorth Korean leader Kim Jong Un has praised his troops fighting abroad as forging an \u201cinvincible alliance\u201d with Russia in a new year\u2019s message, state media said Thursday. Pyongyang has sent thousands of troops to support Russia\u2019s nearly four-year invasion of Ukraine, according to South Korean and Western intelligence agencies. At least 600 have died and thousands more have sustained injuries, according to South Korean estimates.
\nAnalysts say North Korea is receiving financial aid, military technology and food and energy supplies from Russia in return.
\nOn Thursday Kim praised his men fighting in an \u201calien land\u201d, congratulating their \u201cheroic\u201d defence of the nation\u2019s honour and instructing them to \u201cbe brave\u201d, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.
\n\u201cAs the whole country is enveloped in a festive atmosphere of greeting the new year, I all the more miss you, who are fighting bravely on the battlefields in the alien land even at this moment,\u201d he said, according to KCNA.
\n\u201cBehind you are Pyongyang and Moscow,\u201d Kim said.The North Korean leader praised soldiers for strengthening the \u201cinvincible alliance\u201d with Russia, calling on them to fight \u201cfor the fraternal Russian people\u201d. And Kim hinted that more overseas action would take place this year, highlighting \u201cremarkable feats you will perform on the overseas battlefields\u201d. – Nationalist appeals –
\nAnalysts say that North Korea\u2019s deepening alliance with Russia has offered an economic lifeline to Kim\u2019s regime and allowed him to rebuff US and South Korean overtures for dialogue.
\n\u201cDeployments to Russia, as well as overseas military operations or cooperation more broadly, are no longer exceptional but have become embedded as part of official defence policy,\u201d Lim Eul-chul, a professor at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University, told media.
\nAnd Thursday\u2019s state media coverage shows that Kim can also \u201cframe the economic and military gains\u201d from the troop deployments in nationalist appeals to his domestic audience, he added. On-the-ground accounts, however, paint a grim picture for North Korean troops embedded in Europe\u2019s bloodiest war in decades.
\nPyongyang\u2019s soldiers have been ordered to kill themselves rather than be taken prisoner, according to South Korea\u2019s intelligence service and accounts by two North Koreas captured by Ukraine. The two men, held captive by Kyiv since January 2025 after sustaining injuries on the battlefield, have expressed a desire to defect to the South.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SEOUL North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has praised his troops fighting abroad as forging an \u201cinvincible alliance\u201d with Russia in a new year\u2019s message, state media said Thursday. Pyongyang has sent thousands of troops to support Russia\u2019s nearly four-year invasion of Ukraine, according to South Korean and Western intelligence agencies. At least 600 have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":523327,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-523305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n