[Kiho Han's Column] Tears of Kursk and the "Blood Pact" Bill

Dr. Kiho Han, Director (Associate Professor) of the Research Laboratory at the Ajou University Institute for Unification Studies and Affiliated Research Fellow at CUKPE

The international community has been in turmoil since the beginning of the year , starting with the Tears of Kursk and the "Blood Pact" bill

. The ouster of Venezuelan President Maduro, initiated by President Trump's orders, followed by intensified anti-regime protests and large-scale bloodshed in Iran, and conflict with Europe over the US's plan to annex Greenland, are prime examples. Last month, the United States, through the release of its National Security Strategy (NSS), shed its respectable role as a guardian of international norms and heralded the beginning of "donroism" as the hegemon of the Western Hemisphere. Signs that the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific region are moving away from the US sphere of influence are complicating diplomatic calculations for various countries. Above all, the deportation of Maduro likely served as a catalyst for confidence in North Korea's nuclear program rather than concern. They had already witnessed the downfall of a non-nuclear, anti-American leader in Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, who voluntarily dismantled his weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in 2003. Now, the path of regime security, prioritized by advanced nuclear development, has become an irreversible part of Chairman Kim Jong-un's history and future, an absolute guideline and ideology that can only guarantee national security.

Looking back, without this "almighty sword," nuclear weapons, North Korea would not have suffered so much from sanctions, formed a military alliance with Russia, or participated in the Russo-British War, where young soldiers would not have perished violently on the Kursk Peninsula. The Russo-British War, which began with a full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022, will mark its fourth anniversary next month. As of June 2025, the British Ministry of Defense estimated that at least 6,000 of the approximately 15,000 North Korean troops deployed during the Battle of Kursk suffered casualties. The North Korean army, which faced the Battle of Kursk with courage and without combat experience, paid a heavy price for its ignorance of electronic reconnaissance, electronic equipment, and drone use.

Around October 2024, when signs of North Korean troops being deployed to Russia surfaced, the international community labeled it a "dangerous deal." However, more than a year later, news coming from the Kursk Front suggests that this was more than a simple transaction; it was becoming a "political and moral debt" that Chairman Kim Jong-un would find difficult to repay. Perhaps conscious of this, North Korea officially acknowledged the deployment on April 28th of last year, after a large number of casualties were confirmed. Two months later, on July 5th, the North indirectly mourned the fallen soldiers by publishing the poems "I Will Not Forget" and "Immortal Name" in the "Munhak Sinmun," the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Korean Writers' Union. This was followed by a memorial service for the Kursk troop casualties on August 22nd, and the first and second state commendation ceremonies on August 21st and 29th. Chairman Kim made an unusual public apology to the bereaved families he had invited, saying, “I once again atone for the sorrow of not being able to bring back our soldiers who fell in battle and bring them back to their original positions, and for not being able to protect their precious lives. I will take them and those children in.” However, on December 12th of last year, at a welcoming ceremony for the return of the North Korean military engineering unit in front of the April 25 Cultural Center in Pyongyang, he emphasized, regarding the nine soldiers killed, that “giving one’s life for one’s country is not a sacrifice, but an honor.” This can be interpreted as an attempt to manage internal unrest within the regime and leverage social symbolic capital by recasting future sacrifices as a heroic narrative. The North Korean military’s Kursk deployment and news of the mass casualties served as incentives for Kim Jong-un to demand economic and military support from Russia, while also undeniably leaving considerable scars on his rule.

First, there is the contradiction and persistence of securing government funds in exchange for the sacrifice of “bullet shields.” The Battle of Kursk vividly demonstrated the brutality of modern warfare. Deployed into a battlefield rife with drones and precision-guided weapons, young North Korean soldiers, facing unfamiliar terrain and tactics, cried out, "Long live General Kim Jong-un!" in their final moments, helplessly perishing. For Chairman Kim, their sacrifice primarily meant increasing his economic claims against Russia. According to the National Intelligence Service (October 2024), the monthly salary per North Korean soldier from Russia is $2,000, while laborers receive around $800. The additional compensation for those killed in action has helped North Korea earn foreign currency, a source of income suffocated by sanctions. However, criticism that the national treasury was filled at the cost of the lives of its citizens could fuel latent discontent within North Korea. This directly clashes with the image of the "fatherly leader" that Chairman Kim has championed for his people, and could raise doubts about his "people-first" ruling power.

Second, the survivors speak out: war will eventually end. North Korea cannot afford to continue long-distance deployments indefinitely. The soldiers who survived Kursk and returned home have witnessed the realities of modern warfare, the pitiful state of the Russian army, lacking combat prowess, and the tragic deaths of their comrades. North Korea's elite special forces, the Storm Corps, have endured enormous human and psychological losses. They will be treated as "combat-trained instructors" within the North Korean military, having personally experienced modern warfare, without any treatment or management for mental health issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that are common among veterans. These ambivalent individuals also represent a "dangerous spark" that could spread the truth about the battlefield that the Kim Jong-un regime wishes to conceal. The recent release of interviews with prisoners captured on the Kursk Front expressing their intention to defect to South Korea or testifying to the horrors of the battlefield, the power of these events cannot be overlooked. This is a painful moment for Chairman Kim. We urge the diplomatic authorities to expedite the repatriation of these individuals, who are constitutionally our citizens, on humanitarian grounds.

Third, there is the burden of the unequal alliance between North Korea and Russia. While the deployment of troops elevated North Korea-Russia relations from mere friendship to a "blood alliance," in the Russo-Russian War, North Korean troops were incorporated into the Russian military formation and fought in the absence of an independent command structure. Furthermore, North Korea was promised military technology (presumably ICBM reentry technology and military reconnaissance satellites) in exchange for the blood sacrifices of its young men for Russia's war effort. This event can be seen as the beginning of an asymmetric alliance based on autonomy-security trade-off, rather than the symmetric alliance based on capability aggregation that alliance theorists advocate. It will be Chairman Kim's task to appropriately manage this increased dependence on Russia going forward. If Russia demands additional troop deployment, and North Korea, having already suffered thousands of casualties, cannot refuse, the asymmetrical alliance will undermine Kim Jong-un's "independence" policy. Conversely, if he refuses, he will need to secure a replacement for Russia in advance.

Kursk has become a "mass graveyard" for North Korean youth, but Chairman Kim continues to solidify internal unity by branding the sacrifice of Kursk as a "holy war against imperialism." With each death notice delivered to a North Korean home, the interest on his debt will compound. The calculation of using funds and technology to compensate for the soldiers' lives may seem effective in the short term. However, historically, power founded on the blood of the people has demanded a price in blood. The blood price of Kursk will not be a mere compensation, but will remain a gigantic debt certificate mortgaging the future of the Kim Jong-un regime. A recent interview with a North Korean prisoner of war captured by the Ukrainian military, given to a domestic broadcaster, still rings in my ears. “We’re the same people… Who would want to die? Who would take their life so lightly?”

(This article was originally published as a column in Aju News in Korean and translated into English with the help of Google Translate. The views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not represent the official stance of the center.)