Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu has travelled to Pyongyang for the second time this month. He will meet with DPRK leader Kim Jong Un there, Russian state media reported.
This is Shoigu’s third visit to the DPRK in the past three months.
“Sergei Shoigu arrived in Pyongyang on special instructions from Russian President Vladimir Putin,” the Russian Security Council said in a statement.
North Korea is under tough international sanctions for developing its nuclear and missile programme. Russia, as a member of the UN Security Council, voted in favour of some of them. Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has sharply strengthened its partnership with Pyongyang by refusing to implement many of the sanctions.
The Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Group, which includes 11 countries, released a report in late May indicating that North Korea had supplied Russia with more than 20,000 containers of munitions since September 2023, thus facilitating Russian strikes on Ukraine, particularly on critical infrastructure.
Pyongyang and Moscow, which ratified the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty in November 2024, deny the arms shipments, but recently confirmed the participation of North Korean troops in combat operations against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk region.