North Korea pledges ‘unconditional support’ for Russia in Ukraine following Lavrov visit

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 dignity and basic interests” in Ukraine, and voiced his “sincere hope” that Russia would attain “victory and glory”.

When asked whether North Korean troops would become more involved in Ukraine during a press conference following the meeting, Lavrov said that Russia could not “refuse a sincere display of solidarity” from Pyongyang, according to Russian state-owned news agencyTASS.

“The DPRK itself determines the forms in which we implement our strategic partnership agreement,” Lavrov added, noting that Vladimir Putin was 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 resulted in a secret agreement for the DPRK to send troops to Ukraine, came amid reports that Pyongyang was preparing to send a further 25,000 to 30,000 soldiers to Ukraine, tripling its presence there.

Citing a Ukrainian intelligence assessment, CNN reported at the start of July 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 been used to fight in Russia’s southwestern Kursk region, which came under partial occupation by Ukraine in August 2024, before the Russian military recaptured the territory 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.