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 overVladimir Putin's war in Ukraine. North Korea's Kim Jong Un and Russian Security Council SecretarySergei Shoiguare 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 troopsare fighting alongside Russian forcesto repel a Ukrainian incursion into Russia's Kursk border region. At the time, Putin praisedNorth Korean soldierswho he said stood "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 twoNorth Korean soldiersfighting alongside Russian forces in Kursk — the first such claim by Kyiv sinceNorth Koreasent thousands of troops to shore up Moscow's war effort on the other side of the world.
