Vladimir Putin and Kim Kim Jong Un spoke by phone in a “warm comradely atmosphere” on Tuesday, August 13th, and confirmed “their will to strengthen cooperation in the future,” the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said. The call came three days before the summit between Putin and Trump, the first between a sitting U.S. and Russian president since 2021.
North Korea has sent thousands of troops to Russia’s Kursk region, as well as weapons to aid its war effort, with Kim offering Moscow his full support for the war during talks last month with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
During their call on Tuesday, Putin expressed appreciation for “the self-sacrificing spirit displayed by service personnel of the Korean People’s Army in liberating Kursk,” KCNA said. Kim, in turn, pledged that North Korea would “fully support all measures to be taken by the Russian leadership in the future, too.”
The Kremlin confirmed the phone call in a statement, adding that Putin had “shared information with Kim Jong Un in the context of the upcoming talks with U.S. President Donald Trump.”
Russia and North Korea have forged closer ties in recent years, with the two countries signing a mutual defence pact in 2024, when a Putin visit also took place. In April, North Korea confirmed for the first time that it had deployed a contingent of its soldiers to the front line in Ukraine, alongside Russian troops.
South Korean and Western intelligence agencies have said Pyongyang sent more than 10,000 soldiers to Russia’s Kursk region in 2024, along with artillery shells, missiles and long-range rocket systems.
