North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian security official Sergei Shoigu have announced greater cooperation on security issues, as the West accuses Kim of supplying Russia with weapons amid Russia's aggression against Ukraine.
Kim and Shoigu discussed "deepening the strategic dialogue between the two countries," North Korea's state news agency KCNA reported.
It said they discussed a "broad exchange of views on regional and international situations" and reached a satisfactory consensus on issues including greater "cooperation in defense of common security interests".
Kim Jong Un said that North Korea will continue to expand cooperation with Russia in accordance with the strategic partnership of the two countries, KCNA reported.
The United States of America (US) and Ukraine, as well as many other countries and independent analysts, claim that Kim is helping Russia in its war in Ukraine by supplying it with missiles in exchange for Moscow's economic and other military aid.
Moscow and Pyongyang have denied the allegations, but have vowed to step up their military cooperation and signed a comprehensive strategic partnership in June.
Shoigu, a former Russian defense minister and now secretary of the Security Council, hinted at the beginning of closer relations between North Korea and Russia during his visit to Pyongyang last July.
The head of the research organization that is looking for the origin of the weapons used in the Russian attacks on Ukraine since 2018, stated in June at the United Nations Security Council that the organization "indisputably" established that the ballistic missile whose remains were found in Ukraine this year originated from North Korea.
At the end of June, the US and its Western allies verbally clashed with representatives of Russia and North Korea at a UN Security Council meeting over Western claims that the two countries are violating the UN embargo on arms exports from North Korea.
Russia rejected those claims as "groundless", and North Korea called the discussion about "someone's alleged transfer of weapons" as "extremely presumptuous".
Jonah Leff, executive director of the Conflict Armament Research organization, presented a detailed analysis of the missile that hit the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on January 2 this year at the Security Council meeting.
Leff said their teams had examined three more identical North Korean missiles that hit Kyiv and Zaporozhye this year as well.
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