North Korea held week-long ideological lectures for officials in June 2026 to mark the second anniversary of its comprehensive strategic partnership treaty with Russia, framing the alliance as an unbreakable achievement of Kim Jong Un’s leadership while working to contain growing unease over the deaths of North Korean soldiers deployed to fight in Russia’s war against Ukraine.
A source in South Hwanghae province told Daily NK recently that Haeju city launched the lectures on June 19 following instructions issued by higher party organs on June 18. The lectures, directed at official study groups, carried the theme that the North Korea–Russia alliance forged through Kim Jong Un’s bold decision was eternal and invincible. The source said the campaign was ordered specifically to mark the treaty’s second anniversary.
The North Korea–Russia Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty was signed by Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin during Putin’s visit to Pyongyang in June 2024. The treaty covers cooperation across political, economic, cultural, defense, and security domains, and is widely understood to provide a mutual security guarantee between the two countries.
According to the source, the lectures presented the treaty as a legal foundation capable of securing the future of the bilateral relationship under any circumstances. Lecturers pointed to the resumption of Pyongyang–Moscow passenger flights, the groundbreaking of a North Korea–Russia friendship hospital, and the deployment of North Korean troops to Russia as the clearest proof that the treaty was being put into practice. Cooperation across political, economic, cultural, defense, and security areas had reached unprecedented levels over the past two years, they argued.
Officials weep — but not out of loyalty
The most striking element of the lectures, according to the source, was their treatment of North Korean soldiers killed while fighting on Russian soil. Their deaths were presented as acts of great sacrifice for the homeland, made on behalf of a common front against the United States. Lecturers stressed that Kim Jong Un had personally pledged to take responsibility for those soldiers and their families, describing the leader as holding the deployed troops close with the affection of a blood relative and taking direct charge of their lives, deaths, and their families’ livelihoods.
The framing appeared designed to forestall ideological wavering by elevating the fallen soldiers as heroes and tying their sacrifice to the narrative of the leader’s benevolence. But the source said the effect on officials in Haeju was more complicated than the authorities likely intended.
“While officials outwardly applauded the country’s diplomatic achievements, many couldn’t conceal their inner turmoil,” the source said. Some officials were seen in tears during the lectures. “They weren’t crying out of gratitude for the leader’s love,” the source said. “They were crying for the soldiers buried in a foreign land — and worrying that their own children could be sent to a foreign battlefield at any moment.”
Some officials also voiced quiet skepticism about the deployment’s rationale, the source added. The sacrifice of the soldiers would be difficult to justify to ordinary people, some said, unless it translated into stable market prices or genuine relief from hunger.
The source said the urgency of holding a week-long lecture campaign timed specifically to the treaty’s anniversary reflected the authorities’ awareness that fatigue and anxiety over the deployment issue were spreading internally. By casting the alliance in terms of “victory on the allied front” and “the leader’s benevolence,” the party appeared to be trying to paper over that unease — though, based on what the source observed, with only partial success.
Reporting from inside North Korea
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