On Saturday, April 25, 2026, a Russian government delegation headed by Defense Minister Andrey Belousov and State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin visited Pyongyang. After a meeting with dictator Kim Jong Un, the main event of the visit took place: the ceremonial opening in the capital of the Museum Commemorating Combat Feats During Overseas Military Operations, marking the first anniversary of the liberation of Kursk Oblast from Ukrainian occupation.
Photos: KCNA
According to estimates by Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Military Intelligence and South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS), Kim Jong Un is believed to have sent between 14,000 and 15,000 Korean People’s Army soldiers to Russia. Total losses, according to data from February this year from both the NIS and British Defense Intelligence (DI), include around 6,000 killed and wounded, as well as military equipment losses of various types.
While the propagandistic nature of the ceremony itself, which sought to justify support for Russia’s illegal aggression against Ukraine, does not warrant coverage, the published photographs do. They show that the Russians gave the North Koreans heavy Western-made military equipment captured from the Armed Forces of Ukraine and originally supplied as donations. Some of the exhibits, and the fact that they are now in North Korea, should raise concern, although it is true that they had already been in Russian hands earlier.
A former Polish Leopard 2A4 tank in the foreground, with a former Turkish second-generation BMC Kirpi MRAP in the background
A former German SPz Marder 1A3 infantry fighting vehicle in the background behind the officials, and on the right side of the photograph a former American M1A1SA-UKR Abrams tank, along with the Leopard 2A4 again
Still frame from a video by the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation: the aforementioned Leopard 2A4 is visible on the right, as well as a former French AMX-10RCR armored reconnaissance vehicle on the left, while in the background there is a difficult-to-identify armored vehicle, probably a first-generation Kirpi MRAP
A wider view of the exhibition: from left, the previously mentioned former German SPz Marder 1A3, a former American M2A2 Bradley ODS-SA infantry fighting vehicle, an M1A1SA-UKR Abrams, behind it a difficult-to-identify wheeled vehicle in sand camouflage, a former French VAB 4×4 armored personnel carrier with a distinctive anti-drone cage farther in the background, and a Leopard 2A4.
A former British Husky TSV, a modified International Military Extreme Truck – Military Version