In a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, media officials reported that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un pledged his nation’s “full support and solidarity” to Moscow.
North Korea’s Kim Offers Support to Putin: On the holiday of Russia, one of the few countries that still have cordial ties with Pyongyang, Kim sent a message of congratulations.
Although he did not specifically reference the invasion of Ukraine or Moscow’s involvement in a war in his letter, which was released by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), he commended Putin for making the “correct decision and guidance… to foil the hostile forces’ escalating threats.”
The statement continued by expressing the people of North Korea’s “full support and solidarity to the Russian people in their all-out struggle for implementing the sacred cause to preserve the sovereign rights, development, and interests of their country against the imperialists’ high-handed and arbitrary practices.”
Since the war in Ukraine started, Pyongyang has sent Moscow several messages of solidarity.
North Korea has denounced Western military assistance to Kyiv and called that conflict a “proxy war” by the United States to topple Russia.
In January, the US charged North Korea with providing rockets and missiles to the Russian mercenary outfit Wagner. North Korea refuted this accusation.
And in March, Washington asserted that it had evidence showing that Moscow was looking to Pyongyang for weaponry to support its offensive in Ukraine in exchange for food help for North Korea’s needy people.
As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, Russia has long resisted putting more pressure on North Korea, which is subject to several UN and Western sanctions because of its missile and nuclear weapons programs.