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NextImg:North Korea pledges ‘unconditional support’ for Russia in Ukraine following Lavrov visit — Novaya Gazeta Europe

Kim Jong Un greets Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during a meeting in Wonsan, North Korea, 12 July 2025. Photo: EPA/KCNA

Kim Jong Un greets Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during a meeting in Wonsan, North Korea, 12 July 2025. Photo: EPA/KCNA

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has pledged his country’s “unconditional support” for Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, North Korean state news agency KCNA reported on Sunday, following a three-day visit by Russia’s top diplomat.

Following a “comradely” meeting on Saturday between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Kim Jong Un, the two sides issued a joint statement proclaiming plans to develop a “comprehensive and forward-looking invincible alliance”, with Kim expressing Pyongyang’s willingness to “encourage” Moscow’s efforts to “remove the root cause of the Ukrainian conflict”.

According to KCNA, Kim also expressed his “firm belief” that Russia would accomplish its “sacred cause of defending [its] dignity and basic interests” in Ukraine, and voiced his “sincere hope” that “victory and glory would be always in store for the great Russia”.

At a press conference that followed the meeting, when asked whether North Korean troops could become more involved in Ukraine, Lavrov said that Russia could not “refuse a sincere display of solidarity” from Pyongyang, according to TASS, a Russian state-owned news agency.

“The DPRK itself determines the forms in which we implement our strategic partnership agreement,” Lavrov added, noting that Vladimir Putin is in regular contact with the North Korean dictator.

The visit, the most high-profile by a Kremlin figure since Putin’s trip to North Korea in June 2024, which ended a 24-year gap in executive diplomatic engagement and resulted in a secret agreement allowing the DPRK to send troops to Ukraine, comes as Pyongyang reportedly prepares to send a further 25,000 to 30,000 soldiers to Ukraine, tripling its presence there.

At the start of July, citing a Ukrainian intelligence assessment, CNN reported that new troops arriving from the DPRK “in the coming months” could be deployed to Russian-occupied areas of eastern Ukraine to boost Russia’s “large-scale offensive operations”.

Since October, Western intelligence agencies have documented the involvement of over 10,000 North Korean troops in battle against Ukrainian soldiers.

The majority of these soldiers have fought in Russia’s southwestern Kursk region, which came under partial occupation by Ukraine in August 2024, before it was reportedly returned to Russian military control in the spring.

In April, while announcing the “liberation” of Kursk, Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, thanked North Korea’s military for fighting “shoulder to shoulder” with Russian servicemen in the region.