North Korean despot Kim Jong Un sent his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, a cozy New Year’s welcome — sharing that their two countries’ alliance is formed by “sharing blood, life and death.”
The two nation’s have grown increasingly closer since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, when Pyongyang began sending thousands of troops to fight alongside Russian soldiers on the frontlines.
North Korea and “Russia relations have been further consolidated into the sincerest alliance of sharing blood, life and death in the same trench, and their absolute solidity and mightiness have been more vividly etched in the pages of the times and history,” Kim penned to Putin, according to North Korean state-run news site KCNA.
The hermit kingdom ruler claimed North Korea’s bond with Russia is “invincible” and said it would last forever in his letter to the Russian strongman.
Moscow has found itself globally isolated since unleashing its war on Ukraine, and faces mounting pressure from US and European sanctions as it continues to slow walk negotiating an end to the bloodshed.
President Trump slapped 25% tariffs on India in August over their purchases of Russian oil and sanctioned major Russian oil companies, which has led Putin allies, China and India, to sharply pulling back their oil imports from Moscow.
Putin had previously sent Kim a New Year’s letter in which he hailed North Korea’s “heroic” soldiers and lauded the two countries’ “invincible friendship.”
Pyongyang has sent 12,000 soldiers to help the Kremlin repel a Ukrainian advance in the Kursk region, and pledged to send 30,000 more troops in July.
Over 6,000 North Korean troops have died in the war so far, according to CNN.
With Post wires.
