Russia’s top security official is in North Korea for talks on Putin’s war in Ukraine

Russia’s top security official was in North Korea on Wednesday for talks with the country’s leader, the Russian Tass news agency reported, the latest sign of the two autocratic countries' alignment over Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine.

North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu are expected to discuss details on the strategic partnership agreement between Moscow and Pyongyang, which Kim and Putin signed in June 2024.

The talks will also touch on "issues on the international agenda, including the situation around Ukraine," Russian media reported, citing the Security Council's press team. Shoigu, formerly Russia’s defense minister, last traveled to Pyongyang in late March.

In April, the Kremlin confirmed that North Korean troops are fighting alongside Russian forces to repel a Ukrainian incursion into Russia's Kursk border region.

At the time, Putin praised North Korean soldiers who he said "shoulder to shoulder with Russian fighters, defended our Motherland as their own."

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had said in January that Ukrainian forces captured two North Korean soldiers fighting alongside Russian forces in Kursk - the first such claim by Kyiv since North Korea sent thousands of troops to shore up Moscow's war effort on the other side of the world.