By Olha Chepil | 2025-03-05

KYIV -- Wounded Russian servicemen sent to North Korea for treatment and rehabilitation are also likely part of a program to conduct military training and exchange combat experience, say analysts.

Russia has been racking up enormous casualties since it invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

North Korea has treated hundreds of Russian troops, according to remarks made on February 9 by Russian Ambassador to North Korea Aleksandr Matsegora in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta, a Russian state-run newspaper.

Hundreds of Russians wounded in the war against Ukraine have been sent to North Korea, with Pyongyang refusing compensation for their care, said Matsegora.

"Treatment, care, food -- everything related to their stay in the DPRK [an acronym for North Korea] -- all this was absolutely free," he said.

The scale and impact of Pyongyang's role in providing medical and rehabilitation services to Russian soldiers remain unknown.

The Russians sent to North Korea may include officers and instructors, who are capable of passing on combat experience to the North Korean army, say analysts.

This practice could indicate deep military cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang that remains unacknowledged officially.

Less serious wounds treated in N. Korea

"It is interesting that wounded soldiers without serious injuries are going there," Oleksandr Chupak, director of economic programs at the Ukrainian Studies of Strategic Research think tank, told Kontur.

"They go there more for sanatorium treatment and for rehabilitation, not for treatment of serious injuries," Chupak noted.

"The purpose of these trips is not fundamentally about receiving treatment, but rather it is for Russian soldiers with experience in the latest war to share experience with their Korean colleagues who are preparing to go to war [far away] or are preparing to fight in their own region," he said.

On February 20, The Guardian wrote about Alexei (name changed), a Russian soldier who returned from the war with a shrapnel wound to his leg.

He convalesced at a resort in Wonsan, North Korea.

The mission of Russians sent to North Korea "is more about training and education -- to strengthen the North Korean army for certain future missions," Natalia Plaksienko-Butyrskaya, a scholar of East Asian affairs, told Kontur.

Growing cooperation

North Korea has also set up a summer camp for the children of Russian military personnel killed in the war in Ukraine.

"In addition to servicemen, children whose parents died in the war were also accepted by Pioneer camps for rehabilitation," said Plaksienko-Butyrskaya.

"It could be some humanitarian response by North Korea to the collaboration [in the war against Ukraine], and a certain amount of gratitude," she added.

North Korea and Russia have been cooperating for months. Up to 12,000 North Koreans went to Kursk province, Russia, last fall to support Russian troops.

However, the North Koreans suffered significant losses in the fighting and were withdrawn from the front for a time.

"They were indeed withdrawn because their attack units suffered immense losses and had lost some of their combat capability in practice," Serhiy Kuzan, director of the Ukrainian Center for Security and Cooperation, told Kontur.

"Consequently, they were pulled back for reinforcements and regrouping and to revise their tactics on the battlefield."

Since then, North Korea has sent additional troops to Russia to fight Ukrainian forces, reported Reuters February 27, quoting South Korean intelligence.

North Korea sent up to 3,000 additional military personnel to Russia in January through February, according to informed estimates.

"The Kursk operation showed ... that the North Korean army [even more than Russia's] uses cannon fodder assaults," said Kuzan.

Russian freighters and military aircraft transported the North Koreans. North Korean motorized-rifle, engineering and reconnaissance units that had not previously participated in the fighting in Kursk province have arrived there.

Experience in a real war and information sharing with Russian forces could change the North Korean army, say analysts.

"This is huge combat experience that North Korea is now receiving that it did not previously have. I must say that this army will now be in a different class. That is, it is going to fight differently," said Kuzan.