North Korean envoy promises to stick with Russia until 'victory'

North Korea’s foreign minister promised to stick with Russia until “victory” during talks with her Russian counterpart in Moscow, as Western concerns escalate over defense cooperation that includes Pyongyang sending thousands of troops to help in the war against Ukraine.

“North Korea assures Russia that it will always be with the Russian comrades until the day of victory,” Choe Son Hui said on Friday as she met Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Lavrov greeted his counterpart in the city’s Yaroslavsky railway station ahead of talks in a building used by the Foreign Ministry for such meetings. He said there was “close” cooperation between the two countries’ militaries and intelligence services, while Choe hailed ties she said were moving to a new level.

Russia on Thursday declined to comment on whether it’s providing missile technology to North Korea in return for military assistance. The isolated Communist state hours earlier had fired an intercontinental ballistic missile that flew longer than any previous one tested by Kim Jong Un’s regime, adding to the tensions over its dispatch of troops to Russia.

Last week, President Vladimir Putin avoided answering when asked whether North Korea has sent soldiers to Russia, though he pointed to a mutual-defense clause between the two nations as part of a strategic partnership agreement.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow should not “frighten or concern” anyone, the state-run Tass news service reported. “It is the sovereign right of both North Korea and Russia to foster relations,” Peskov told reporters on a conference call Thursday.

The U.S. and South Korea say Pyongyang is dispatching around 10,000 troops to aid Russia. Officials in Washington said Thursday that about 8,000 have been deployed to Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces occupy part of the border territory.

U.S. President Joe Biden said Ukraine should strike North Korean forces if they enter the country to fight.

The arrival of North Koreans on the battlefield in Ukraine would mark an escalation of the conflict that’s already the largest in Europe since World War II. It may prompt South Korea to offer more direct support to Kyiv including lethal weapons, something it has resisted so far and that would further magnify the global impact of the war that Putin started in February 2022.

The deployment from Pyongyang includes elite special forces who are undergoing training in Russia’s far east, according to South Korean intelligence documents. The Kremlin is providing the North Koreans with fake identity documents to make them appear to be Russians, the intelligence service said.

It calculated that Pyongyang has sent Russia approximately 8 million rounds of North Korean-made 122mm and 152mm shells since August last year. About 100 Hwasong-11 missiles as well as Bulsae-4 anti-tank weapons have also been detected on the battlefield in Ukraine.

-------

(With assistance from Shinhye Kang.)