North Korea's Kim vows 'unconditional support' for Russia's war in Ukraine
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un vowed to "unconditionally support" Russia in its war in Ukraine and said he expected Moscow to emerge victorious, Pyongyang's state media said Thursday.
North Korea has become one of Moscow's main allies during its more than three-year Ukraine offensive, sending thousands of troops and container-loads of weapons to help the Kremlin oust Ukrainian forces from Russia's Kursk border region.
Meeting top Russian security official Sergei Shoigu on Wednesday, Kim said that Pyongyang would "unconditionally support the stand of Russia and its foreign policies in all the crucial international political issues including the Ukrainian issue", the Korean Central News Agency reported.
Kim "expressed expectation and conviction that Russia would, as ever, surely win victory in the sacred cause of justice", KCNA said.
The two sides agreed to "continue to dynamically expand" relations, the state news agency reported.
Russia and North Korea signed a sweeping military deal last year, including a mutual defence clause, during a rare visit by Russian leader Vladimir Putin to the nuclear-armed North.
Shoigu hailed the deal as "fully meeting the interests of both countries" during a visit in March.
Around 600 North Korean soldiers have been killed and thousands more wounded fighting for Russia, according to South Korean lawmaker Lee Seong-kweun, citing the country's intelligence service.
North Korea in April confirmed for the first time that it had deployed troops to Russia to support Moscow's war in Ukraine -- and admitted that its troops had been killed in combat.
South Korea has also accused the nuclear-armed North of sending significant volumes of weapons, including missiles, to help Russia's war effort.
The visit was Shoigu's second to Pyongyang in less than three months.
- Deepening ties -
A multilateral sanctions monitoring group including South Korea, the United States, Japan and eight other countries last week condemned ties between Russia and North Korea as "unlawful".
According to the group, Russian-flagged cargo vessels delivered as many as "nine million rounds of mixed artillery and multiple rocket launcher ammunition" from North Korea to Russia last year.
In return, "Russia is believed to have provided North Korea with air defence equipment and anti-aircraft missiles", it said.
The meeting between Kim and Shoigu in Pyongyang came the same day the North's arch-enemy South Korea swore in new president Lee Jae-myung.
In a speech upon taking office Wednesday, Lee vowed to reach out to the North -- a marked departure from his hawkish predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol, under whom relations plummeted to their worst level in years.
Lee said Seoul would "deter North Korean nuclear and military provocations while opening communication channels and pursuing dialogue and cooperation to build peace on the Korean Peninsula".
KCNA reported on Lee's inauguration in a two-line report on Thursday but did not respond to his overtures for talks.
It also issued a commentary Thursday slamming French President Emmanuel Macron over "imprudent" comments on Pyongyang's ties with Moscow, calling them "shocking claptrap".
The commentary by analyst Choe Ju Hyun took aim at comments by the French leader during the recent Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.
Macron suggested that the NATO defence alliance could become involved in Asia if China did not do more to press North Korea to stop sending forces to help Russia's war in Ukraine.
"It is a mistake if Macron thinks that he can cloak NATO's aggressive and wicked intention to put dirty military shoes on the Asia-Pacific region by taking issue with the DPRK-Russia cooperative relations," the commentary said, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
bur-oho/ceb/tym
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Chicago Tribune
21 minutes ago
- Chicago Tribune
Elon Musk's threat to withdraw Dragon capsule would leave NASA with 1 option: Russia
As President Donald Trump and Elon Musk argued on social media on Thursday, the world's richest man threatened to decommission a space capsule used to take astronauts and supplies to the International Space Station. After Trump threatened to cut government contracts given to Musk's SpaceX rocket company and his Starlink internet satellite services, Musk responded via X that SpaceX 'will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately.' It's unclear how serious Musk's threat was. But the capsule, developed with the help of government contracts, is an important part of keeping the space station running. NASA also relies heavily on SpaceX for other programs including launching science missions and, later this decade, returning astronauts to the surface of the moon. Wall Street rises as focus turns from Trump-Musk feud to the May jobs dataSpaceX is the only U.S. company capable right now of transporting crews to and from the space station, using its four-person Dragon capsules. Boeing's Starliner capsule has flown astronauts only once; last year's test flight went so badly that the two NASA astronauts had to hitch a ride back to Earth via SpaceX in March, more than nine months after launching last June. Starliner remains grounded as NASA decides whether to go with another test flight with cargo, rather than a crew. SpaceX also uses a Dragon capsule for its own privately run missions. The next one of those is due to fly next week on a trip chartered by Axiom Space, a Houston company. Cargo versions of the Dragon capsule are also used to ferry food and other supplies to the orbiting lab. Russia's Soyuz capsules are the only other means of getting crews to the space station right now. The Soyuz capsules hold three people at a time. For now, each Soyuz launch carries two Russians and one NASA astronaut, and each SpaceX launch has one Russian on board under a barter system. That way, in an emergency requiring a capsule to return, there is always someone from the U.S. and Russian on board. With its first crew launch for NASA in 2020 — the first orbital flight of a crew by a private company — SpaceX enabled NASA to reduce its reliance on Russia for crew transport. The Russian flights had been costing the U.S. tens of millions of dollars per seat, for years. NASA has also used Russian spacecraft for cargo, along with U.S. contractor Northrup Grumman. The company has used its rockets to launch several science missions for NASA as well as military equipment. Last year, SpaceX also won a NASA contract to help bring the space station out of orbit when it is no longer usable. SpaceX's Starship mega rocket is what NASA has picked to get astronauts from lunar orbit to the surface of the moon, at least for the first two landing missions. Starship made its ninth test flight last week from Texas, but tumbled out of control and broke apart.
Yahoo
28 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Europe can sustain Ukraine's war effort without U.S., German general says
By Sabine Siebold BERLIN (Reuters) -Europe is capable of sustaining Ukraine's resistance against Russia, even if the United States were to decide to completely halt its military support to Kyiv, the senior military official in charge of coordinating Germany's arms supplies told Reuters. Major General Christian Freuding said NATO's European members plus Canada had already exceeded the estimated $20 billion worth of U.S. military aid provided last year to Kyiv. They accounted for around 60% of the total costs borne by the Western allies, he said. "The war against Ukraine is raging on our continent, it is also being waged against the European security order. If the political will is there, then the means will also be there to largely compensate for the American support," Freuding said in an interview. Ukraine continues to receive weapons deliveries approved by former U.S. President Joe Biden. It is unclear, however, whether his successor Donald Trump will sign off on any new supplies - or allow third countries to purchase U.S. weapons for Kyiv. Asked how long the Biden-approved deliveries will sustain Kyiv, Freuding said this depended on logistical processes as well as the speed at which Ukraine burns through arms and ammunition, but that the summer seemed a realistic estimate. "How the American government handles further requests for military support for Ukraine is unclear at the moment. We can't say anything about that," he added. "In general, the U.S. has a great interest in boosting its own defence industry. I make the cautious assumption that at least purchasing U.S. defence goods, and delivering them to Ukraine, will be possible." RUSSIAN REARMAMENT Addressing the potential threat that Russia might pose beyond Ukraine, Freuding said Moscow had a clear plan to reconstitute and grow its military, and was expected to succeed in efforts to double its land forces to 1.5 million by 2026. "They are recruiting significantly more personnel than they need as replacements for the war in Ukraine. They are producing surplus stocks of ammunition, in particular, which they are 'putting on store'". Freuding said Russia was also ramping up its military infrastructure, especially in its western military district bordering new NATO member Finland. Any ceasefire in Ukraine could allow Russia to accelerate its rearmament efforts ahead of a possible large-scale attack on NATO territory, he said. The alliance currently believes this could occur from 2029. "Of course, a ceasefire could change the threat situation," Freuding said. Russia denies planning to attack NATO and says it is waging a "special military operation" in Ukraine to protect its own security against what it casts as an aggressive, hostile West. Germany has provided a total of 38 billion euros ($43 billion) in military aid to Ukraine, including funds earmarked for the coming years, making it the second largest donor after the United States, the defence ministry in Berlin says. Freuding said he was not aware of the Trump administration having endorsed any U.S. arms deliveries to Kyiv paid for by third countries. Still, making up for certain crucial parts of U.S. military support to Ukraine would pose significant challenges to Europe. Listing capabilities that would be hard for Europeans to replace, Freuding cited U.S. intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) data, air defence systems like Patriot and spare parts for U.S. weapons. "If we are capable of replacing specific (ISR) capabilities to a sufficient extent - we need to look into this when we definitely know the Americans won't provide this data anymore." Ukraine uses U.S. intelligence data to help its air defence, and analysts say also for targeting. ($1 = 0.8757 euros)
Yahoo
28 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Moscow ready to grant Musk asylum if necessary amid rift with Trump, Russian official says
Russia is prepared to offer political asylum to tech billionaire Elon Musk following his public feud with U.S. President Donald Trump, Dmitry Novikov, deputy chair of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, said June 6. "I think Musk is playing a completely different game, that he won't need political asylum, although if he did, Russia could certainly provide it," Novikov told the state-run news agency TASS. The remarks came days after Musk's 130-day stint as head of a temporary federal commission ended on May 30, and amid deepening tensions between the Tesla CEO and Trump. The feud began when Musk publicly criticized the administration's "Big Beautiful Bill," a sweeping tax proposal that economists warn could expand the U.S. deficit by $600 billion. Trump responded by personally attacking Musk during his meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on June 5. In his Truth Social post, Trump said that Musk "just went crazy." Musk replied on social media that Trump owed his electoral victory to him, claiming that without his influence, Democrats would have maintained control of the House. Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council and a frequent purveyor of anti-Western rhetoric, joked on X that Moscow would broker peace between "D and E" — referring to Trump and Musk — in exchange for Starlink shares. "Don't fight, guys," Medvedev wrote. Musk was a key figure in Trump's campaign and early administration. As head of the government efficiency task force, he led efforts to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which has provided over $37 billion in aid to Ukraine. Despite initially supporting Ukraine and providing Starlink satellite systems to bolster military communications, Musk has increasingly echoed Russian narratives. The billionaire has falsely claimed that President Volodymyr Zelensky has little support in Ukraine and accused Kyiv of waging a "never-ending draft meat grinder." He has also lobbied against U.S. military assistance to Ukraine, arguing it only prolongs the war — a line frequently used by Kremlin officials to discourage Western backing for Kyiv. Musk's comments have earned praise from Russian officials and propagandists, including state TV hosts and military bloggers who now view the billionaire as a sympathetic figure. Read also: 'Loud night in Kyiv, Dad' — US envoy's daughter appeals to Kellogg during Russian attack We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
