Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov began his three-day visit to North Korea on Saturday, highlighting growing cooperation between the two countries during the Ukraine conflict.
Moscow and Pyongyang signed a defense pact in June 2024, after which North Korea deployed troops to help repel a large-scale Ukrainian incursion into Russia’s Kursk region.
During a meeting with North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui in Wonsan, Lavrov praised the “invincible brotherhood” between the two nations.
“This assessment proved true in the Kursk region, where the heroic soldiers of the Korean People’s Army, alongside Russian troops, advanced the liberation of the area from Ukrainian Nazis, at the cost of blood and even their own lives,” he said.
In August 2024, Ukrainian forces crossed Russia’s internationally recognized border and captured the city of Sudzha, as well as dozens of border villages. Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky described the offensive at the time as an attempt to gain leverage during future peace talks. The last Ukrainian troops were expelled from the area in April 2025.
Sergey Shoigu, secretary of Russia’s Security Council, said last month that North Korea would send 1,000 mine clearance troops and 5,000 combat engineers to rebuild infrastructure in the Kursk region.
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