BRISBANE: Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Saturday (Jul 28) said that the United States believes Russia’s defence minister is in North Korea to secure supplies of weapons to aid the stalled invasion of Ukraine.
Following Sergei Shoigu’s arrival on a rare trip to Pyongyang, Blinken said that Russia is scrambling to buy arms from allies across the world.
“I strongly doubt he’s there on holiday,” Blinken told reporters in Australia.
“We’re seeing Russia desperately looking for support, for weapons, wherever it can find them to continue to prosecute its aggression against Ukraine,” he said.
“We see that in North Korea, we see that as well with Iran, which has provided many drones to Russia that it’s using to destroy civilian infrastructure and killed civilians in Ukraine.”
Russia, a historic ally of North Korea, is one of a handful of nations with which Pyongyang maintains friendly relations.
In this photo provided by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, third right, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, fourth right, and China’s Vice Chairman of the standing committee of the country’s National People’s Congress Li Hongzhong, second right, attend a military parade to mark the 70th anniversary of the armistice that halted fighting in the 1950-53 Korean War, on Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, North Korea Thursday, Jul 27, 2023. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)
North Korean state media reported on Friday that leader Kim Jong Un, flanked by visiting Russian and Chinese officials, oversaw a North Korean military parade featuring new attack drones and Pyongyang’s nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Standing between Shoigu and Chinese politburo member Li Hongzhong in the VIP viewing stands, Kim smiled and saluted as thousands of soldiers marched past, trailed by the country’s most powerful ICBMs, which are banned under UN sanctions.
The event, featuring Kim’s first known foreign guests since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, was to mark the 70th anniversary of the Korean War armistice, which ended open hostilities and is celebrated as Victory Day.
While in North Korea, Shoigu and Kim had what Pyongyang’s state media described as “a friendly talk”.
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