Don’t mess with the United States or its allies.
North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong-un has been dealt a humiliating blow, and for the first time, he’s admitting it publicly. His gamble of sending thousands of North Korean soldiers to fight for Russian President Vladimir Putin in Ukraine has turned into a disaster — with staggering battlefield losses that the regime can no longer hide.
On Friday, Kim held a rare ceremony in Pyongyang, surrounded by grieving families, where the faces of 100 dead soldiers were displayed. The North Korean leader, desperate to project strength, appeared emotional as he hugged children of the fallen and declared their deaths “heroic.” But to the outside world, it looked like an unprecedented sign of weakness.
For months, Kim denied the true scale of his military disaster. South Korean intelligence reported in April that nearly 15,000 North Korean troops had been deployed to the Russian front, with almost 5,000 casualties — killed or wounded. At first, Kim admitted to only “a handful” of deaths. Now, his own ceremony confirms what experts already knew: North Korea has been bled dry on a foreign battlefield.
The heaviest losses came in Russia’s Kursk region, where over 600 North Korean soldiers were reportedly killed in brutal clashes last year. Ukrainian drone strikes and daring cross-border raids continue to pound Russian positions, exposing the fragility of Putin’s forces — and the vulnerability of the North Korean “volunteers” thrown into the fight.
By late 2024, Kim had committed 12,000 troops, sending another 3,000 in early 2025 to shore up Putin’s collapsing front lines. Yet despite the propaganda, morale has collapsed. Many analysts believe North Korea’s so-called “overseas military operations” are ending not in triumph, but in failure.
Kim now claims the mission is reaching a “victorious conclusion.” In reality, it looks like a forced retreat. His battered troops may soon be pulled back home, leaving Russia weaker and North Korea humiliated.
Contrast this chaos with President Donald Trump’s foreign policy. Under Trump, North Korea was contained, pressured, and forced to the negotiating table without a single American soldier lost. Today, while Kim mourns his fallen and Putin struggles to hold territory, Trump’s America-First strategy stands out as the proven path of peace through strength.
The message is clear: dictators test America when they sense weakness. They retreat when confronted by strength. And right now, with North Korea bleeding and Russia reeling, it’s proof that Trump was right all along.