Denis Poussin pledged in a message congratulating Kim on Korea’s liberation day on Aug. 15, North Korea’s state-run KCNA news agency reported, two days after it reported a similar message from Russian President Vladimir Putin to Kim. “The people of the Donbass region, too, are struggling to regain the freedom and justice of their history today, just as the people of Korea did 77 years ago,” the report said in Pushilin’s letter. “The message expressed the belief that an equally beneficial bilateral cooperation in line with the interests of the peoples of the two countries will be achieved between the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” KCNA added, using North Korea’s official name . Korea. Pushilin previously said he hoped for “fruitful cooperation” and increased trade with North Korea. Last month, Russia’s ambassador to Pyongyang, Alexander Matzegora, said North Korean labor could be sent to help rebuild war-torn infrastructure in the self-proclaimed people’s republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. Matsegora said there are potentially “many opportunities” for economic cooperation between the North and self-proclaimed democracies in Ukraine’s Donbass region, despite UN sanctions. He told Russian newspaper Izvestia in an interview, according to the Seoul-based NK News website, that “highly skilled and hardworking Korean manufacturers, who are capable of working in the most difficult conditions, could help us restore the our social systems, infrastructure and industrial facilities”. North Korea has traditionally earned much-needed foreign currency by sending its citizens to work abroad. Under UN sanctions, they were supposed to be repatriated by the end of 2019, but a significant number of North Korean workers continued to work in Russia and China, as well as Laos and Vietnam, after the deadline. Earlier this week, Putin told the North Korean ruler that Russia and North Korea “will expand comprehensive and constructive bilateral relations with joint efforts,” according to a letter cited by KCNA on Monday. The letter claimed that closer ties would be in the interest of both countries and would help strengthen the security and stability of the Korean Peninsula and the Northeast Asian region. Speaking at the Moscow International Security Conference on Tuesday, Putin said Russia would provide its allies and partners with “advanced weapons and military equipment” as well as work to create new “international security mechanisms.” . Kim reportedly sent a reply letter to Putin saying that the Russia-North Korea friendship had been forged in World War II with the victory over Japan. Their “strategic and tactical cooperation, support and solidarity” had since reached a new level in their joint efforts to thwart threats and provocations from hostile military forces, Kim said in the letter. KCNA did not identify the enemy forces, but usually uses that term to refer to the US and its allies. Kim predicted that cooperation between Russia and North Korea would develop based on an agreement signed in 2019 when he met with Putin. In July, North Korea recognized the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Luhansk (LPR) in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region as independent states. The move made North Korea only the third country after Russia and Syria to recognize the two breakaway entities. In a statement supporting the self-proclaimed democracies, North Korea’s foreign ministry said Ukraine “has no right to raise an issue or question our legitimate exercise of sovereignty after committing an act that lacks serious justice and fairness among nations, uniting actively US unjustly and unlawfully hostile policy in the past.” In response, Ukraine immediately cut ties with Pyongyang over the move. Reuters contributed to this report.
