SEOUL – Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un have vowed to strengthen cooperation, days ahead of Putin’s summit in Alaska with Donald Trump, Pyongyang’s state media reported Wednesday.
Putin and Kim spoke by phone in a “warm comradely atmosphere” on Tuesday and confirmed “their will to strengthen cooperation in the future”, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.
The call came three days before the summit between Putin and Trump, the first between a sitting US and Russian president since 2021, as Trump seeks to broker an end to Russia’s more than three-year war in Ukraine.
North Korea has sent thousands of troops to Russia’s Kursk region as well as weapons to aid its war effort, with Kim offering Moscow his full support for the war during talks last month with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
During their call on Tuesday, Putin expressed appreciation for “the self-sacrificing spirit displayed by service personnel of the Korean People’s Army in liberating Kursk,”, KCNA said.
Kim, in turn, pledged that North Korea would “fully support all measures to be taken by the Russian leadership in the future, too”.
The Kremlin confirmed the phone call in a statement, adding that Putin had “shared information with Kim Jong Un in the context of the upcoming talks with US President Donald Trump”.
Trump is expected to press Russia to end the Ukraine war during their meeting in Alaska on Friday.
Russia and North Korea have forged closer ties in recent years, with the two countries signing a mutual defense pact last year, when Putin visited the reclusive state. AFP
In April, North Korea confirmed for the first time that it had deployed a contingent of its soldiers to the front line in Ukraine, alongside Russian troops.
South Korean and Western intelligence agencies have said Pyongyang sent more than 10,000 soldiers to Russia’s Kursk region in 2024, along with artillery shells, missiles and long-range rocket systems.
Around 600 North Korean soldiers have been killed and thousands more wounded fighting for Russia, Seoul has said.
The public disclosure of Kim and Putin’s conversation signals the “intent to showcase their closeness to domestic and international audiences”, Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, told AFP.
