Kim Jong Un stood before North Korea's newest war memorial on April 26, 2026, and praised soldiers who blew themselves up rather than surrender to Ukraine. At the opening of Pyongyang's Memorial Museum of Foreign Military Operations, held with Russian Defense Minister Andrei Beloussov and Russian parliament speaker Vyacheslav Volodin at his side, the North Korean leader confirmed a standing order: his troops fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine are instructed to self-detonate before allowing Ukrainian capture. He called them heroes. The confirmation, made publicly and by name, is the clearest official acknowledgment yet of both the scale of North Korea's military involvement in this war and the terms under which its soldiers are being sent to die.
The Museum and the Admission
North Korea opened its Memorial Museum of Foreign Military Operations on April 26 in Pyongyang. The museum commemorates North Korean troops killed fighting for Russia against Ukraine. Kim Jong Un presided at the ceremony alongside senior Russian officials, including the defense minister and the speaker of the Russian parliament.
In remarks at the ceremony, Kim twice praised soldiers who had "self-blasted" and described them as heroes who chose death to defend North Korea's honor. The public language made official what battlefield accounts had already established: Pyongyang issued a standing order for its troops to commit suicide rather than be taken alive by Ukrainian forces. The policy exists because the regime fears what a captured soldier might reveal. Most troops deployed had never left North Korea. Exposure to the outside world, including the possibility of speaking freely in Ukrainian custody, poses a direct threat to the ideological control that keeps the regime intact.
