Russia turns a deaf ear to claims that accuse it of using weapons provided to it by North Korea in Ukraine. The Kremlin limits itself to denying it and, in addition, consolidates its special relationship with Pyongyang by promoting diplomatic contacts. This week the North Korean Foreign Minister is in Moscow on a visit whose agenda she keeps almost totally secret.
Choe Son-hui’s arrival in the Russian capital was known thanks to a statement without many details published this Monday by the North Korean state agency KCNA. The delegation, led by Choe, “left on Sunday for an official visit to the Russian Federation at the invitation of its Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov,” he explained.
The Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed the visit, which will last until Wednesday, January 17. The meeting between Choe and Lavrov will take place this Tuesday, announced his spokesperson, Maria Zajárova.
This visit comes days after South Korea’s latest accusations that its northern neighbor is supplying Russia with weapons, including ballistic missiles, for use in bombing raids against Ukraine.
Weapons transfers from Pyongyang to Moscow, as Seoul and the United States maintain, would violate the UN sanctions that weigh on the isolated Asian country and that Russia also supported.
The Seoul Government estimates that since last summer North Korea has sent Russia more than 5,000 containers loaded with ballistic missiles and their launchers, in addition to hundreds of thousands of artillery projectiles.
South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik said last week in an interview with the Yonhap agency that Pyongyang could sell Moscow tactical guided missiles with an estimated range of 100-180 kilometers, which North Korea tested for the first time in 2022.
The United States claimed earlier this January that Russia had begun using ballistic missiles received from North Korea to attack Ukraine, calling it an “alarming escalation.”
Both Russia and North Korea have denied any information about military assistance. Pyongyang has said it has not supplied and does not plan to supply weapons to Moscow. The Russian permanent representative to the UN, Vasili Nebenzia, described as false the data published by The New York Times and the Associated Press agency on the purchase of “millions of artillery shells and missiles” from North Korea.
The need to find international friends has brought Russians and North Koreans closer together. The Kremlin assured this Monday that Russia is developing relations with “our partner” North Korea in all areas and that it is willing to build them on the foundation laid last September by the leaders of both countries, Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un.
That month, the Russian president received the North Korean leader at the Russian Vostochni Cosmodrome. One of the promises Russia made then was to help North Korea build satellites. According to Western and Seoul accusations, Pyongyang is paying for this technology by supplying weapons to Russia.
But the two partners have repeatedly denied it. In the fall, the Press Secretary of the Russian president, Dimitri Peskov, noted that no military-technical cooperation agreement was signed during the September meeting.
Choe, for his part, said the accusations from the United States and its allies were politicized and distorted. And he also promised that ties with Moscow will reach a “new higher phase.”
Choe Son-hui’s visit is part of the foundations of these agreements and the current close relationship between the two countries.
On his trip to Russia, Kim invited Putin to visit North Korea. “We hope that this visit will take place in the foreseeable future,” Peskov said Monday. That could indicate that the foundations are firmly established. The head of the Kremlin was already in Pyongyang in 2000, when Kim Jong-il, father of the current leader, governed the Asian country.
