In Pyongyang, where monuments rise in clean lines against pale spring skies, memory is often carved in stone before grief has time to settle.

There are plazas where soldiers march in rhythm beneath banners that do not bend, and halls where sacrifice is given language polished smooth by ceremony. In such places, loss is rarely spoken of softly. It is recast, framed, and lifted into something larger than sorrow.

This week, beneath chandeliers and flags, amid the formal gravity of a memorial ceremony, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un offered praise to soldiers who did not return from the war beyond their borders.

Some, he said, had chosen to “self-blast.”

The phrase, stark and strange in translation, drifted outward from North Korea’s state media into the wider world, carrying with it confirmation of what intelligence agencies, defectors, and Ukrainian officials had long alleged: that North Korean troops fighting alongside Russian forces in the war against Ukraine have been ordered—or expected—to take their own lives rather than be captured.

Kim’s remarks came during the unveiling of a memorial in Pyongyang honoring North Korean soldiers who died fighting in Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces launched incursions and where Moscow has sought to regain lost ground. Speaking before bereaved families and visiting Russian officials, Kim described the dead as heroes who had chosen “self-destruction and suicide attack” to defend the honor of the nation.

In his telling, there was nobility in the act.

He praised not only those who died, but also those who survived and, as he described it, “writhed in frustration” for failing to fulfill their duties. In that language lay the familiar architecture of authoritarian loyalty: survival itself recast as insufficiency, death elevated into virtue.

For years, reports have surfaced suggesting North Korean soldiers are indoctrinated to view capture as betrayal.

South Korean intelligence agencies have said memos found on dead North Korean soldiers indicated orders to avoid capture at all costs. Defectors have described a military culture in which surrender is equated with treason, and families at home may face punishment if a soldier is taken alive.

Earlier this year, footage broadcast by South Korean media showed captured North Korean prisoners of war in Ukraine. One reportedly said he regretted not killing himself.

“Everyone else blew themselves up. I failed,” he said.

War distorts language.

It turns retreat into repositioning, occupation into liberation, death into glory. Here, too, language softens and sharpens at once. “Self-blasting” enters headlines as an almost surreal phrase, yet beneath it lies an old and brutal command: die before surrender.

North Korea’s role in the war has become harder to ignore.

South Korean, Ukrainian, and Western intelligence agencies estimate Pyongyang has sent roughly 14,000 to 15,000 troops to support Russia’s operations, particularly in Kursk. Reports suggest more than 6,000 have been killed or wounded in the fighting, though neither Moscow nor Pyongyang has publicly confirmed exact figures.

The deployment follows the military pact signed in 2024 between Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin, pledging mutual assistance in the event of aggression. Since then, North Korea has reportedly sent artillery shells, missiles, and troops. In return, intelligence officials believe Pyongyang has received economic aid, food, fuel, and military technology.

In Pyongyang this week, Russian Defence Minister Andrey Belousov and other senior Russian officials stood alongside Kim as the memorial was unveiled—a tableau of deepening alliance cast in marble and ceremony.

Far away, in the fields and ruined towns of eastern Europe, the war continues in its familiar rhythm of artillery, drones, trenches, and smoke.

But in the ceremony halls of North Korea, another rhythm plays: drums, speeches, applause.

The dead are named heroes.

The survivors are reminded of duty.

The living are taught what honor requires.

And somewhere in Kursk’s churned earth or Ukraine’s scarred frontlines, young men who crossed borders under orders carry not only rifles and grenades, but the invisible burden of a doctrine that leaves little room for capture, and perhaps less room for return.

Sometimes war announces itself in fire across the night sky.

Sometimes it is heard in the quiet applause of a memorial hall, where sacrifice is spoken of in polished words, and silence gathers around what those words leave unsaid.

AI Image Disclaimer Illustrations were created using AI tools and are not real photographs, but visual interpretations of the reported events.

Sources Reuters The Guardian BBC The Independent Bloomberg