North Korea’s Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui praised the ‘spiritual closeness’ between the two states.Published On 27 Oct 202527 Oct 2025Click here to share on social mediashare2ShareRussia’s President Vladimir Putin has met North Korea’s Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui in the latest high-level engagement between the two countries, which have strengthened ties during the Ukraine war.Footage released by Russian state news agencies showed Putin greeting Choe in the Kremlin on Monday. Russia’s top diplomat Sergey Lavrov also appeared at the meeting.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listPutin said the countries’ “relations and development prospects” are progressing “according to plan”, and extended regards to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, according to Russia’s Sputnik news agency. Choe, in turn, passed on “warm wishes” from Kim, having earlier praised the “spiritual closeness” of the two nations’ relationship in talks with Lavrov.Russia and North Korea, both under extensive Western sanctions, have significantly bolstered ties in recent years, including signing a 2024 defence pact committing each country to provide military support to the other in the event of “aggression”.Since then, North Korea has sent around 10,000 troops to join Russia’s war against Ukraine, at least 600 of whom have died in combat, according to estimates from Seoul and Kyiv.Pyongyang first acknowledged its soldiers’ involvement in the war in April, saying they helped Russia retake its strategic Kursk region after a Ukrainian counteroffensive.Several days ago, Kim held a ceremony marking the opening of a museum in Pyongyang to honour the North Korean troops killed in the conflict. He said their deployment “marked the beginning of a new history of militant solidarity” with Russia, with which there is an “invincible” alliance. Advertisement Putin last met Kim in person on September 3 in Beijing, where the leaders held official talks after attending a military parade hosted by China’s President Xi Jinping. At the time, Putin praised North Korean soldiers for fighting “courageously and heroically” in the Ukrai …
