Kim Jong-un, North Korea's Chairperson of the State Affairs Commission, marked the 81st Liberation Day by visiting the Liberation Tower commemorating former Soviet troops, laying flowers while accompanied by his daughter Ju-ae. Russian President Vladimir Putin also sent a congratulatory message to Kim for Liberation Day, stressing friendly ties while referring to a bilateral "joint project," which appears to suggest the dispatch of North Korean troops to Russia.
Korean Central News Agency reported on the 15th that "Respected Kim Jong-un visited the Liberation Tower on Aug. 14 on the occasion of the 81st anniversary of national liberation." The Liberation Tower in Pyongyang commemorating Soviet troops is a monument honoring Soviet soldiers who were killed while driving out Japanese forces from the northern part of the Korean Peninsula in 1945.
Kim said, "The excellent history and tradition, and the blood ties between the DPRK and Russia (North Korea and Russia) are the fundamental cornerstone and an inexhaustible driving force of today's friendly and cooperative relations between the two countries," adding, "The great friendship and unity between the peoples of the two countries, forged with a sublime ideology and genuine militant comradely relations, will be firmly succeeded and developed across generations along with a new era of all-around blossoming," according to the agency.
This is Kim's third Liberation Day visit to the Liberation Tower this year. Since 2024, when the "Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership" (North Korea-Russia treaty) was signed, he has visited the Liberation Tower on Liberation Day, showcasing close ties with Russia at home and abroad.
Putin also sent a Liberation Day congratulatory message to Kim. In the message, he said, "Today, relations between Moscow and Pyongyang have reached an unprecedentedly high level of a comprehensive strategic partnership," adding, "Our states are actively cooperating in all areas and aligning efforts to ensure regional security and stability."
He went on, "I am confident that we will continue our constructive joint work on urgent bilateral and international issues to establish a more just and genuinely democratic world order for the well-being of the Russian and Korean peoples." The "joint work" that Putin mentioned is interpreted as meaning the dispatch of North Korean troops to Russia.
Russian Minister of Defense Andrei Belousov also attended the Day of Liberation of the Fatherland ceremony hosted by the North Korean Embassy in Russia the previous day (local time), saying, "This fall, we will erect a monument in Kursk to honor the heroic deeds of North Korean and Russian soldiers." At the same event, Russian Minister of Natural Resources Aleksandr Kozlov said, "Within the year, construction of an automobile road crossing the Tumen River will be completed, and vehicle traffic will begin soon."
Meanwhile, besides the Liberation Tower, Kim also visited the Taesongsan Revolutionary Martyrs' Cemetery, where anti-Japanese partisans and independence activists are buried, and the Monument to the Anti-Japanese Revolutionary Martyrs. Ri Il-hwan, a secretary of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea and director of the Propaganda and Agitation Department, who had disappeared from public view since June, accompanied the visit to the Taesongsan Revolutionary Martyrs' Cemetery.