A secret no more: Russia and N. Korea's battle against Ukraine is celebrated in Moscow exhibit

What is billed as the biggest exhibition of North Korean art held outside the reclusive state is the latest sign of warming ties between Moscow and Pyongyang - and evidence of their increasingly tight geopolitical embrace in the face of what they say is a hostile West.

It also marks a public relations U-turn. For months, Russia and North Korea sought to keep secret the role Pyongyang's soldiers played in helping Moscow push Ukrainians out of Kursk in western Russia. Now it is the subject of mutual and public pride.

"I bow down before the achievement of our North Korean brothers in liberating the soil of Kursk," Alexander, a member of the public, wrote in the Moscow exhibition's comments book.

The offensive, the biggest foreign incursion into Russian territory since World War Two, saw Ukrainian forces smash through the Russian border on August 6 last year catching an embarrassed Moscow unawares.

At its height, Ukrainian forces claimed nearly 1,400 square kilometres (540 square miles) of Kursk in an operation Kyiv said was designed to relieve pressure on its own forces in eastern Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin phoned his commanders, who praised the North Koreans for fighting with them "shoulder to shoulder", in April to congratulate them on pushing the Ukrainians out.

The deployment of North Korean troops - acknowledged for the first time in the same month - and the flow of North Korean arms gave Russia a critical battlefield advantage, according to a Reuters investigation.

It came at a high cost. British military intelligence estimates that North Korea's force of some 14,000 men took more than 6,000 casualties.

SOCIALIST REALISM

A giant photograph of Putin and North Korea's Kim Jong Un shaking hands looms large at the start of the exhibition - "Art Exhibition DPRK. A country of Great People," which occupies part of Russia's Museum of Decorative Arts in central Moscow.

The exhibition showcases more than 100 paintings and other pieces of art, many of which are reminiscent of Soviet socialist realism.

Happy families are shown looking out over Soviet-style apartment blocks described as "luxury housing", missiles are shown blasting off, and smiling farm workers are shown gathering the harvest.

Other paintings depict battle scenes from the 1950-53 Korean war, reflecting Pyongyang's preferred narrative.

One, for example, entitled "The bloodthirsty American beasts," shows an American soldier wielding an axe over a North Korean schoolgirl with a bloodied blouse.

STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP

Putin and Kim sealed a strategic partnership treaty last year, which included a mutual defence pact, and Kim, who calls Putin "his dearest comrade," has pledged that his country - a traditional U.S. foe - will always stand with Moscow.

The U.S. and South Korea accuse North Korea of shipping arms to Russia to use in its war against Ukraine. Moscow and Pyongyang have denied weapons transfers but have been keener to talk about other aspects of their burgeoning relationship.

Direct flights between Moscow and Pyongyang resumed this summer for the first time since the mid-1990s, as did a direct train route, which, at over 10,000 km (6,213 miles), Russia says is the longest direct rail journey in the world.

Some Russian tourists are now choosing to holiday in North Korea too as part of highly-controlled organised tour groups with tour agencies promoting a new beach resort - Wonsan Kalma on the shores of the Sea of Japan - as worth visiting.

Olga, a visitor to the art exhibition, said it had changed her view of North Korea, which she said had previously been based on news reports and clichés, and had opened up a rare window into how people there live.

"Any country which stands up for its views and defends its interests is worthy of respect in my opinion," she said.

Nearby, a video screen broadcast archive propaganda footage as a North Korean diplomat, dressed in a black suit, kept a wary eye on the paintings.