(Seoul) North Korean leader Kim Jong Un extended Pyongyang’s “full support” to Moscow in a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, state media reported.
Mr. Kim sent a congratulatory message to his counterpart on the National Day of Russia, one of Pyongyang’s few allies.
The statement, published by the North’s Korean news agency KCNA, does not explicitly mention the invasion of Ukraine or Moscow’s involvement in an armed conflict, but praises Mr. Putin’s “good decision and leadership”. […] To thwart growing threats from hostile forces.
The North Korean people offer “full support and solidarity with the Russian people in their relentless struggle to defend the sacred cause of safeguarding the sovereign rights, development, and interests of their country against the arbitrary and tyrannical practices of imperialists.”
North Korea has called the conflict a US “proxy war” aimed at destroying Russia, and has condemned Western military assistance to Kiev.
In January, Washington accused North Korea of supplying missiles to the Russian paramilitary group Wagner, which Pyongyang denied.
Then Washington claimed in March that it had evidence that Moscow was seeking weapons from Pyongyang for its offensive in Ukraine, in exchange for food aid for North Korea, whose economy and agriculture are being devastated.
As a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, Russia has long vetoed new sanctions against North Korea over its nuclear program and repeated missile strikes.
