North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has discussed the “importance and necessity” of military cooperation with Russia’s vice defense minister to “defend mutual security interests,” the North’s state media reported on Friday.
Kim met a Russian military delegation, led by the vice minister, Aleksey Krivoruchko, in Pyongyang on Thursday, according to the Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA.
“The talk shared recognition of the importance and necessity of the military cooperation between the two countries to defend mutual security interests,” the KCNA said.
Kim reiterated his firm support and solidarity for Russia’s war with Ukraine and stressed the need for the militaries of the two countries to “get united more firmly” to develop bilateral relations, the news agency added.
Krivoruchko is the first known ranking Russian military official to visit North Korea since a summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kim.
The two met in Pyongyang for talks aimed at bolstering their economic and security relations and underscoring their shared defiance of Western sanctions.
Under a new partnership treaty announced at their summit they agreed to offer each other military assistance “without delay” if either were attacked.
Russia has been cozying up to North Korea since Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The United States has accused North Korea of sending Russia weapons for use in its Ukraine war but both North Korea and Russia deny that.
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More balloons
The military in U.S. ally South Korea resumed propaganda loudspeaker broadcasts toward North Korea in response to the North’s latest launch of trash-carrying balloons into the South.
The broadcasts took place from Thursday evening to early Friday in areas near where the balloons were launched, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff, or JCS, said on Friday.
Since late May, North Korea has sent more than 2,000 trash-carrying balloons into the South in retaliation for the launch by anti-North Korea activists of balloons carrying propaganda leaflets towards the North.
“The military’s response going forward will fully depend on North Korea’s actions," the JCS said, without providing further details.
On Thursday, the JCS said the latest North Korean balloons appeared to be traveling toward the northern part of Gyeonggi Province that surrounds Seoul, advising the public to not touch any fallen balloon and to report them to the military or police.
South Korea resumed loudspeaker broadcasts last month as it fully suspended a 2018 inter-Korean military tension reduction agreement in response to the North's launch of waves of trash-carrying balloons.
Edited by Mike Firn.