A senior diplomat of Russia hosted them on Friday The North Korean counterpart for talks amid reports that Pyongyang has sent thousands of troops to Russia to supports the army in the war in Ukraine.

Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui’s visit to Moscow and her meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov came in the wake of the Pentagon’s statement that North Korea had carried out about 10,000 troops in Russia to fight against Ukraine in the “next few weeks”.

Western leaders described The deployment of North Korean troops as a significant escalation which could also shake relations in the Indo-Pacific region.

Neither Moscow nor Pyongyang have specified the agenda of Choe’s talks in Moscow, but in a closed-door hearing at South Korea’s parliament, the South’s spy agency said Choe could be involved in high-level talks on sending additional troops to Russia and negotiating what the North would get in return.

South Korean and Western officials have expressed concern that Russia could provide technology that could advance the threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs.

Meeting with Choe in Moscow on Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov hailed ties between Moscow and Pyongyang, saying they had “reached an unprecedentedly high level over the past few years” and proposed discussing the implementation of the partnership agreement strategic agreement signed by the two nations. at the beginning of this year.

“We will have discussions on a range of issues related to politics and foreign policy, as well as matters that require a joint response between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Russian Federation,” Choe said, citing the North’s official name.

She reiterated Pyongyang’s support “for the just struggle of the Russian army and people to defend their country’s sovereign rights and security interests” in Ukraine.

Moscow and Pyongyang have responded vaguely to South Korean and Western claims about the deployment of North Korean troops in Russia, stressing that their military cooperation complies with international law, without directly admitting the presence of North Korean forces in Russia.

The United States and its allies have also accused North Korea of ​​supplying Russia with millions of artillery shells and other equipment to fuel its military actions in Ukraine.

Russia, along with China, has blocked US-led efforts at the Security Council to tighten sanctions against North Korea over its recent missile tests, which escalated after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Russia also rejected a UN resolution to extend the mandate of the monitors in March, in a move that effectively removed UN experts’ oversight of Security Council sanctions against North Korea.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol last month raised the possibility of supplying Ukraine with weapons while he said Seoul was preparing countermeasures that could be implemented in stages, depending on the degree of military cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow.

South Korea, a growing arms exporter, has provided humanitarian and other non-lethal support to Ukraine and joined US-led economic sanctions against Moscow. It has so far resisted calls from Kiev and NATO to directly supply weapons to Ukraine, citing a long-standing policy of not supplying weapons to countries engaged in active conflict.

— Russia launched three aviation missiles and 48 drones of various types, including Shahed, into Ukraine overnight, the Ukrainian Air Force said. One missile and 31 drones were intercepted, 14 drones were jammed, three drones flew over the territory of Belarus, the air force announced in a report on Friday morning. Several civilian facilities, as well as apartment blocks and private houses in the Poltava, Cherkasy, Kyiv and Odesa regions were damaged by drone debris.

— The Russian military said Friday it had intercepted and destroyed a total of 83 Ukrainian drones in four Russian regions near the border with Ukraine and the annexed Crimean Peninsula. In the Bryansk region, a drone hit a residential block, local authorities said. No casualties were reported. In the Stavropol region, a drone struck an oil depot, according to local officials. Unconfirmed media reports said the oil depot caught fire.