North Korea’s state propaganda agency confirmed on Wednesday that communist dictator Kim Jong-un entertained a call the day before from Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, who has emerged as Pyongyang’s favorite patron following the signing of a mutual defense treaty last year.
Both the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) and the Kremlin confirmed the phone call, which occurred on Tuesday, days before a highly anticipated meeting Putin scheduled with American President Donald Trump on Friday. Putin is expected to meet Trump in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday, their first encounter since Trump won a second term in office in November. Russia’s ongoing invasion of neighboring Ukraine, which North Korea has admitted to actively participating in, is expected to be the main topic of discussion.
The Kremlin readout of Putin’s phone call with Kim claimed that Putin updated Kim on preparations for the Trump summit, a detail KCNA omitted.
The phone call – a message of high respect for Kim from Putin – indicates that Russia has elevated North Korea’s status as a valuable ally, giving Kim primary importance. Notably, North Korea’s closest geopolitical ally has historically been China, which also enjoys friendly relations with Moscow but has seen itself sidelined in Pyongyang recently as Putin makes overtures to Kim.
“The respected Comrade Kim Jong Un and Comrade Vladimir Putin exchanged welcome greetings with each other and had a conversation in a warm comradely atmosphere,” KCNA reported, emphasizing the anniversary of the liberation of Korea from Imperial Japan. Kim reportedly thanked Putin for the Soviet Union’s participation in World War II and contributions to the fall of the Japanese empire.
KCNA also reiterated Kim’s decision to deploy troops into the Ukraine war theater. According to the North Korean government, its troops only participated in fighting in Kursk and other Russian regions on the Ukrainian border that Kyiv counter-invaded in August, not in fighting in Ukrainian territory. North Korea entered the fray after signing a mutual defense agreement with Russia in June 2024, during Putin’s first visit to the country in 20 years.
“The Russian president highly appreciated once again the support provided by the DPRK [North Korea],” the North Korean outlet shared, “and the bravery, heroism and self-sacrificing spirit displayed by service personnel of the Korean People’s Army in liberating Kursk, a part of Russian territory.”
KCNA also added vaguely that the two discussed “issues of mutual concern,” without elaborating.
The Kremlin’s version of the conversation was largely similar to KCNA’s, sharing that Putin congratulated Kim on the anniversary of Korea’s liberation from the Japanese Empire and the tyrants’ mutual “commitment to further developing relations of friendship, neighbourliness, and cooperation across all areas.”
The Kremlin readout mentioned Putin’s expected meeting with Trump, however, claiming that Putin briefed Kim about that meeting.
“The President of Russia also shared information with Kim Jong-un in the context of the upcoming talks with US President Donald Trump,” Putin’s office stated.
On the issue of Ukraine, the Kremlin noted, “Vladimir Putin highly appreciated the support provided by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea during the liberation of the Kursk Region from the invading forces of the Kiev regime, and the courage, heroism, and selflessness displayed by the DPRK soldiers.”
Following the news of the two leaders’ conversation, some media outlets in South Korea reported that the call raised the possibility of Putin discussing North Korea with Trump. Trump became the first American president to visit North Korea during his first term in office and help multiple in-person meetings with Kim, unprecedented steps since the founding of North Korea following World War II. Those meetings concluded, however, when Trump walked out of a summit with Kim in Hanoi, Vietnam, in 2019, complaining that North Korean negotiators were too intransigent about lifting sanctions and refusing to limit the country’s illegal nuclear development.
Kim and Trump maintained personal communication after the failure of that summit, including a rare warm message Kim sent to Trump after a would-be assassin shot him in the ear during a campaign rally in July 2024. In April, Trump told reporters that he would be open to meeting with Kim once again during his second term.
Kim Yo-jong, Kim Jong-un’s sister and a high-ranking North Korean official in her own right, dismissed the possibility of Pyongyang sending any message to Trump through Putin in a typically irascible screed published on Thursday.
“Why should we send a message to the U.S. side?” she asked. “We have nothing to do with the U.S. We are not at all interested in talks that are obsessed with the irreversible past, and there is no more need to explain the reason.”
Kim nonetheless noted that her brother and Trump enjoyed “special personal relations” but rejected the idea that North Korea would change its policies towards Washington as a result.
Russia has maintained close ties to North Korea for years, though it has dramatically expanded contacts with Pyongyang since signing the mutual defense agreement. In July, Putin sent his top diplomat, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, to Pyongyang for meetings with Kim in which the dictator affirmed North Korea’s “unconditional” support for the invasion of Ukraine.
“Kim Jong Un reaffirmed that the DPRK is ready to unconditionally support and encourage all the measures taken by the Russian leadership as regards the tackling of the root cause of the Ukrainian crisis,” KCNA reported at the time, “in keeping with the spirit of the inter-state treaty between the DPRK and Russia in the future, too.”
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