Russian president and Kim exchange ‘pent-up inmost thoughts’ on trip expected to deepen trade and security ties
Vladimir Putin receives warm welcome in North KoreaSee all our Ukraine war coverage
Pyongyang has hailed its relations with Moscow as a “strong, strategic fortress” as Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived on a state visit, his first trip to North Korea in almost 25 years.
State-run news wire KCNA said the relationship was “an engine for accelerating the building of a new multi-polar world,” and demonstrated “invincibility and durability”.
Putin praised North Korea for “firmly supporting” Moscow’s war in Ukraine, in an article published in the Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper of the ruling Workers’ party, on Tuesday. “We highly appreciate that [North Korea] is firmly supporting the special military operations of Russia being conducted in Ukraine,” the Russian leader wrote.
The Russian leader also commended Kim for defying UN security council sanctions – measures that were supported by Moscow until recently – targeting his regime’s nuclear ambitions. Pyongyang had defended its interests “very effectively, despite the US economic pressure, provocation, blackmail and military threats that have lasted for decades”, Putin wrote.
