North Korea vowed to advance its military relationship with Russia, according to a speech shared by Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
In an address celebrating a groundbreaking for the Memorial Museum of Combat Feats at the Overseas Military Operations, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un declared that the “DPRK-Russia friendship, which has increased its eternal vitality and the invincibility and power of which have been verified amid the grave tempest of history, is now rising to its historic peak.”
“The years of militant fraternity, in which a guarantee has been provided for the long-term development of the bilateral friendship at the cost of precious blood, will advance non-stop with the ennobling soul of the great heroes, and more honorable pages of strength and victory will be added to the great chronicles of bilateral ties between the two countries, both just and powerful,” he added.
“Pyongyang will always be with Moscow,” Kim emphasized. “Our friendship and unity will last forever.”
Russia and North Korea signed a mutual defense pact in June 2024, during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to the country in 20 years. Pyongyang has since offered direct military support to Russia.
Earlier this year, Kim called for the buildup of the country’s nuclear arsenal, demanding “rapid expansion” of the weapons program amid recent joint military drills between the United States and South Korea.
According to state media, the North Korean leader explained that the military exercises have “always been provocative and dangerous in their nature but the gravity is increasing from the characteristics that they are recently plotting military nexus with the nuclear element involved.”
