What fate awaits North Korean soldiers returning from the war with Ukraine?
North Korean troops in Kursk (Image: TASS)
When North Korea broke its silence and acknowledged back on April 28 that its troops were fighting for Russia in the war with Ukraine, media outlets overseas offered various analyses on the motivation for finally making the admission.
At the time, Kim Yong-hyun, a professor of North Korean Studies at Dongguk University, told BBC Korea, that Pyongyang viewed the deployment as a way to show that cooperation with Moscow was working powerfully and to give Russia additional leverage in negotiations in the lead-up to a possible ceasefire.
“From North Korea’s perspective, there may also be a desire to flaunt its contributions to the war effort and gain a first-mover advantage in postwar reconstruction,” he said, speculating that Pyongyang might send engineers and laborers in large numbers to aid in rebuilding.
That speculation has now become reality.
On June 17 (local time), Russian news outlet Interfax and others reported that Russian Security Council Secretary Sergey Shoigu visited Pyongyang and met with Chairman Kim Jong-un, after which it was agreed that North Korea would send 6,000 personnel to assist with reconstruction in Russia’s Kursk region.
With both Pyongyang and Moscow now officially acknowledging the deployment of North Korean troops, the relationship between the two nations has entered a new phase.
This is more than mere economic cooperation. It is a symbolic move to deepen military and political alignment.
Earlier, North Korea used its ruling party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, to formally confirm that its troops had participated in the Ukraine war, declaring that the “Kursk liberation operation” had been “successfully completed.” The paper boasted that North Korean forces had “exterminated neo-Nazi forces” and “contributed to the liberation of Russian territory.”
While the open admission of involvement itself is jarring, it leads now to the more critical question of how the homeland will receive the soldiers who return from the battlefield.
In North Korea, war is not just a military operation. It is a stage for demonstrating loyalty. A soldier’s courage is interpreted as a measure of absolute obedience to the Supreme Leader. Survivors may, at least on the surface, be called “heroes.”
At the same time, within the system, those who have experienced foreign battlefields represent something deeply unsettling. They have seen the outside world, experienced a different order, and may be viewed as a potential threat to ideological purity.
This is a familiar narrative. Overseas laborers, students, abducted fishermen, and border-crossers alike, countless returnees have been met with suspicion and surveillance rather than welcome. The military is no exception. To suppress internal unrest, North Korea has historically emphasized control over loyalty, creating the ironic dynamic whereby those who fight for the state become objects of suspicion.
So what does North Korea’s participation in the Ukraine war mean for the individual soldier?
The real issue lies beyond geopolitics or military diplomacy. It is about how the cracks between state, system, and individual will be mended. The physical injuries, emotional isolation, and post-traumatic stress endured by these soldiers are forms of suffering that cannot be papered over with ideology or propaganda. What awaits them? Medals or monitoring?
“The soldiers sent to Russia return home as heroes,” said Kim, a former laborer dispatched to Russia now living in South Korea. “But only for a moment. Their parents didn’t even know they were going to war, and neither did they. If they survive and return, they get the hero treatment and are admitted into the Workers’ Party. But from then on, they become lifelong surveillance targets, marked men.”
“Some of those soldiers must have seen Ukrainian POW footage when they were in Russia. Imagine going back to live in North Korea after that. It’s got to feel like hell. They may be called heroes in name, but they’re really just under the regime’s microscope. At least in Russia they were fed. Back home, the regime won’t take responsibility for them. They earned money through deployment, but now they’ve become headaches. They’re Surveillance Subject No. 1. They’ll spend the rest of their lives in a prison called surveillance.”
Another defector told us he believed the regime preferred that its soldiers die in Russia than return home.
“I recently saw a report that 6,000 of the North Korean troops deployed to Russia have become casualties,” said Lee, adding that deployment is estimated to bring North Korea $4.38 million a month. In addition, Russia is reportedly paying $6,000 to $10,000 per deceased soldier in compensation.
“I couldn’t sleep out of sheer rage,” he said. “North Korea’s troops deployed for construction or combat support are not just cases of human trafficking. They’re proof of a uniquely North Korean form of modern-day slavery.”
“The regime probably prefers that these troops die in Russia and don’t return,” he said. “It’s inevitable they’d be placed under surveillance when they come back. In Russia, they ate well. I still remember how good it felt to finally eat freely. Loyalty to the state isn’t easy. The regime knows that the returnees are nothing but a burden. As sad as it is, dying on the battlefield might be better than returning to North Korea.”
Indeed, according to sources inside North Korea cited by NKDaily, the regime had already decided last year to treat deaths or disappearances during foreign deployment as classified matters. Reports even suggest the state may prefer its troops not to return alive.
“In North Korea, they hand out cigarettes to soldiers. But even goats won’t eat those cigarettes if you offer them one,” defector Kim said. “Then you come to Russia, and they give you two good cigarettes a day. Once you go back, you can’t help but make comparisons.”
“If you come back missing an arm or a leg, of course you’ll feel bitterness,” he said. “The return of soldiers deployed to Russia could pose a threat to regime stability. The government would rather collect compensation for the dead. When have they ever treated us like people? In a country with no human dignity, there’s no human future. To them, we’re nothing but chewed-up gum, watched 24/7.”
Jia defected from North Korea in search of basic freedoms, including the right to travel and freely express herself. Her identity as a North Korean has given her a sense of responsibility to represent the voices of her family and hometown friends and is also the reason she has chosen to work as a journalist.
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