Last summer North Korea began for the first time airing footage which provided public confirmation that it was receiving many of its soldiers home in coffins after they served alongside Russian forces in the context of the Ukraine war.

It's believed that the some ten to fourteen thousand DPRK troops dispatched to assist Moscow had primarily fought in Russia's Kursk province, where they helped repel the previous six-month Ukrainian occupation of the southern border oblast (in 2024-2025).

On Monday, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un unveiled that families of soldiers killed in the battle abroad would receive free new housing. He presided over a ribbon-cutting ceremony marking the completion of a new block of apartments for that purpose, state media reported Monday.

"The new street has been built thanks to the ardent desire of our motherland that wishes that... its excellent sons, who defended the most sacred things by sacrificing their most valuable things, will live forever," Kim said in a speech, as cited by the Korean Central News Agency.

This comes after Kim last week having publicly declared he's ready to "unconditionally support" all of Russian President Vladimir Putin's policies and decisions.

"Before their death, the heroic martyrs must have pictured in their mind's eye their dear families living in the ever-prospering country," the North Korean leader said.

KCNA images also showed Kim touring the new apartments alongside his teenage daughter Ju Ae, believed to be the most likely future successor to Kim.

International reports based on South Korean intelligence estimates say that around 2,000 North Korean soldiers have been killed while fighting alongside Russia so far.

The apartments for families of fallen soldiers is a program clearly intended to create incentives for the military to support Pyongyang's foreign adventurism on behalf of Moscow, and to deflect potential criticism.

Ukraine has bitterly complained about the foreign contingencies helping Russia, and in previously claimed that North Korea could send up to 30,000 - though there's been little evidence of such a high figure.