MOSCOW ¨C Smiling Russian and North Korean troops shown holding the two countries¡¯ flags as they celebrate their victory over Ukrainian forces in Russia¡¯s Kursk region, and a painting of Pyongyang¡¯s troops engaged in a firefight against Ukrainian forces.

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 ¡ª 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 II, 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 kilometers (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 ¡ª acknowledged for the first time in the same month ¡ª and the flow of North Korean arms gave Russia a critical battlefield advantage, according to an 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.

A giant photograph of Putin and North Korea¡¯s Kim Jong Un shaking hands looms large at the start of the exhibition ¡ª ¡°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.

Putin and Kim sealed a strategic partnership treaty last year, which included...