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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a phone call to discuss their deepening ties and war efforts against Ukraine, both countries\u2019 state media said Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The phone call comes as Putin gets set to meet with US President Donald Trump in the US state of Alaska this Friday to discuss a ceasefire proposal on Moscow’s all-out war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
According to North Korea\u2019s official Korean Central News Agency, Putin praised the \u201cbravery, heroism and self-sacrificing spirit\u201d displayed by North Korean troops as they fought together with Russian forces against a Ukrainian incursion into Russia\u2019s Kursk border region, during the call.<\/p>\n
Putin also shared with Kim information about his upcoming talks with Trump, scheduled to take place Friday in Alaska, according to Russia\u2019s state-run Tass news agency, citing the Kremlin. The North Korean reports did not mention the Trump meeting.<\/p>\n
Kim told Putin that Pyongyang will fully support \u201call measures to be taken by the Russian leadership in the future, too,\u201d as they discussed advancing ties in \u201call fields\u201d under a strategic partnership agreement they signed during a summit last year, KCNA said.<\/p>\n
North Korea’s deepening ties with Moscow<\/p>\n
In recent years, Russia and North Korea have developed stronger ties, with Pyongyang providing Russia with personnel and munitions. <\/p>\n
A mutual defence deal was struck between the two nations during Putin’s visit to the isolated dictatorship last year.<\/p>\n
And since Russia invaded Ukraine, Kim has made Moscow the priority of his foreign policy as he aims to break out of diplomatic isolation and expand relations with countries confronting Washington. <\/p>\n
His government has dismissed Washington and Seoul\u2019s stated desires to restart diplomacy aimed at defusing the North\u2019s nuclear program, which derailed in 2019 following a collapsed summit with Trump during his first term.<\/p>\n
In April this year, Pyongyang acknowledged for the first time that it sent a group of its soldiers to fight side by side with Russian troops.<\/p>\n
According to South Korean assessments, North Korea has sent around 15,000 troops to Russia since October last year and also supplied large quantities of military equipment, including artillery and ballistic missiles, in support of Moscow\u2019s war. <\/p>\n
Kim has also agreed to send thousands of military construction workers and deminers to Russia\u2019s Kursk region, a deployment South Korean intelligence believes could happen soon.<\/p>\n
Additional sources \u2022 AP<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ADVERTISEMENT North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a phone call to discuss their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[2000,299,29515,6660,336,657,333],"class_list":{"0":"post-341157","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-kim-jong-un","11":"tag-north-korea","12":"tag-russias-invasion-of-ukraine","13":"tag-ukraine","14":"tag-vladimir-putin"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115021508014780683","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}