North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has publicly acknowledged battlefield losses among his country’s troops fighting for Russia in Ukraine, presiding over medal ceremonies and funerals in Pyongyang for soldiers killed on the front. State television showed Kim affixing decorations to portraits of the dead and embracing family members of the fallen. South Korea’s defence ministry estimates that Pyongyang has dispatched about 15,000 personnel to assist Russia, with roughly 600 killed since the deployment began. The events in Pyongyang mark one of the rare occasions the secretive state has admitted combat fatalities incurred overseas. Within days of the memorials, Kim visited a special-operations training base, where he said building “stronger special operation forces and specialised snipers” is vital to modernising the military, according to the official Korean Central News Agency. He ordered the supply of new sniper rifles and the creation of a dedicated sniper training institute. Analysts cited by South Korean media say Kim is seeking to leverage experience gained on the Ukrainian battlefield—and potential Russian technical support—to accelerate North Korea’s force modernisation while shoring up domestic support amid the mounting death toll.