North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin exchanged friendly letters on Monday, promising to forge stronger bilateral ties between their two nations.
The letters were exchanged on North Korea’s Liberation Day, celebrating the 77th anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Imperial Japanese occupation in World War II, North Korean state media Rodong Sinmun reported. Both letters praised the friendship between the two countries and expressed a desire to strengthen the relationship between them.
Kim wrote that “the strategic and tactical cooperation, support, and solidarity between the two countries have put on a new high stage in the common front for frustrating the hostile forces’ military threat and provocation, and high-handed and arbitrary practices,” referring to the United States and its allies, according to Rodong Sinmun.
‘BLENDED THREAT’: DOJ WARNS OF CHINA, RUSSIA, AND NORTH KOREA ALLYING WITH HACKERS
He concluded by expressing belief that relations between the two “based on comradely friendship and militant unity would grow stronger in all fields,” according to the framework laid out in the 2019 meeting between the two heads of state in Vladivostok, the newspaper reported.
Putin reportedly responded in kind, saying that the “glorious traditions of friendship and cooperation gained in the grim days serve as a durable foundation for developing the good neighborly relations between the Russian Federation and [North Korea] today.” He doubly expressed a desire to deepen bilateral ties between the two countries, which he said would benefit the citizens of Russia and North Korea, according to Rodong Sinmun.
North Korea, long considered an international pariah, has dramatically expanded ties with Russia in the wake of the latter’s invasion of Ukraine. The isolated nation became the third nation in the world, behind Russia and Syria, to recognize the eastern Ukrainian pro-Russian breakaway self-declared republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, according to the Moscow Times. More recently, North Korea has reportedly pledged to send guest workers to help reconstruct areas of Ukraine taken by Russian forces.
“There are prospects for cooperation between North Korea and the republics of Donbas, and they are quite extensive. Firstly, highly qualified, hardworking, and willing to work in the most difficult conditions, Korean builders will be a great help in solving the tasks of restoring social, infrastructural, and industrial facilities destroyed by the retreating Ukronazis,” Russia’s ambassador to North Korea, Alexander Matsegora, said in an interview with Izvestia, as translated by Russian university student Maria Filippova.
Russian defense pundit Igor Korotchenko, speaking with Russian state television, claimed recently that North Korea was ready to contribute 100,000 volunteer troops to fight in Ukraine, according to the New York Post. “If North Korea expresses a desire to meet its international duty to fight against Ukrainian fascism, we should let them,” he said.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Experts express extensive doubt about the claim, with one telling Fox News that such a massive number of foreign troops would be a logistical nightmare that Russia is not willing to undertake.
