August 16, 2022
image source,Getty Images
Kim Jong Un meets Putin in Vladivostok in 2019.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin said Russia and North Korea would expand “comprehensive and constructive bilateral relations”.
Putin said in a letter to Kim Jong Un on Pyongyang’s Liberation Day that the move was in the interests of both countries.
Kim Jong-un responded that the friendship between the two countries was established after the victory over Japan in World War II.
He added that their “comradeship” would become stronger.
The Soviet Union was once North Korea’s main communist ally, providing it with economic cooperation, cultural exchange and assistance.
According to KCNA, Putin said the expanded bilateral ties would “serve the interests of both countries”.
In the letter, Kim Jong-un said that the friendship between Russia and North Korea “was established in the anti-Japanese war” and “consolidated and developed century after century”.
He also said that the strategic and tactical cooperation, support and solidarity between the two countries to defeat the military threats and provocations of hostile forces on the common front have risen to new heights.
North Korea has not named a hostile power, but has used the term repeatedly to refer to the United States and its allies.
“We are ready to provide allies and partners with the most modern weapons, from small arms to armored vehicles and artillery, fighter jets and drones,” President Putin said at an arms exhibition near Moscow on Monday.
He boasted that Russian weapons were valued for their “reliability and quality”, adding that “almost all weapons have been used more than once in actual combat”.
However, despite Russia’s possession of advanced weapons such as cruise missiles, the February 24 invasion of Ukraine was costly for Russian troops. The smaller Ukrainian army has less firepower but is armed with a variety of Western weapons that can cause significant damage.
image source,AFP
North Korea has some Russian weapons.
In July, after Russia signed a decree declaring the independence of two Russia-backed separatist “people’s republics” in eastern Ukraine, North Korea became one of the few countries to formally recognize the two republics. In retaliation, Ukraine severed all diplomatic relations with North Korea.
Russian troops are still trying to consolidate control of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions against fierce Ukrainian resistance.
Many of North Korea’s Russian-designed weapons are old Soviet-era weapons, but it has missiles similar to Russia’s.
Russia’s ambassador to North Korea, Alexander Matsegora, told the Russian newspaper Izvestia that closer cooperation could mean “skilled, hard-working” North Korean workers help rebuild Russian-held Donetsk and Luhansk damaged infrastructure.
He also said North Korea was eager to get replacement parts for Soviet-era heavy equipment from eastern Ukraine and deliver them to North Korean factories and power plants. He said Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, two cities still controlled by the Ukrainian army, were the main sources of the equipment.
Relations between Russia and North Korea declined after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, but they have gradually recovered in recent years as relations between Russia and Western countries have deteriorated.