PYONGYANG: North Korea said Friday it had test-fired a new weapons system which would boost its combat readiness, as Russia’s security chief arrived in Pyongyang for talks with leader Kim Jong Un.
Traditional allies Russia and North Korea have drawn closer since Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, with Seoul accusing Kim of sending thousands of troops and container loads of weapons to help Moscow fight Kyiv.
Neither Moscow nor Pyongyang has officially confirmed the troop deployment, but the two countries last year signed a sweeping military deal, including a mutual defence clause, when Russian President Vladimir Putin made a rare visit to the nuclear-armed North.
Moscow’s top security official Sergei Shoigu has arrived in North Korea for a visit, Russian news agency TASS reported Friday, the latest in a recent series of high-level exchanges between North Korea and Russia.
Shoigu is scheduled to meet with Kim and other North Korean officials, both TASS and RIA Novosti reported.
Kim oversaw the test-fire of the country’s latest anti-aircraft missile system, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Friday, without specifying when the test happened.
Kim said it showed North Korea’s army would be “equipped with another major defence weapon system with laudable combat performance,” KCNA said.
The announcement came a day after South Korea wrapped up a major annual joint military exercise with the United States, known as Freedom Shield, which Pyongyang separately denounced Friday as “a rehearsal of war of aggression”.
The North — which attacked its neighbour in 1950, triggering the Korean War — has long been infuriated by any military exercises between the United States and the South.
Seoul said last week the North had fired “multiple unidentified ballistic missiles” after it began the joint drills, which involve US soldiers stationed in South Korea.
Pyongyang also carried out a test-launch of strategic cruise missiles in the Yellow Sea in late February, which it said showed off “counterattack capabilities”.
The most recent Freedom Shield exercise featured a collaborative drill focused on countering weapons of mass destruction, specifically targeting nuclear, chemical, biological, and radioactive threats.
Relations between Pyongyang and Seoul have been at one of their lowest points in years, with the North launching a flurry of ballistic missiles last year in violation of UN sanctions.
