North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent a message to congratulate Russian President Vladimir Putin on his 70th birthday on Friday, local media has reported.
The authoritarian ruling Workers' Party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, reported that the letter congratulated Putin for "crushing the challenges and threats of the United States."
The birthday message continued: " Russia is reliably defending the dignity of the state and its fundamental interests from the challenges and threats by the US and its vassal forces.
"Such reality is unthinkable without your distinguished leadership and strong will."
Mr Jong-un said the cooperation between North Korea and Russia has been strengthened recently like "never before."
He said he hoped their personal ties could become even stronger in the future and forge a role in further developing the friendly relationship between the two countries.
Russia and North Korea have been seemingly ratcheting up their relationship since President Putin ordered his troops to invade Ukraine at the start of February.
In 2019 the North Korean dictator and Russian warmonger met for the first time at a summit in the Russian city of Vladivostok.
Since then, Russia has joined China in opposing new sanctions and publicly splitting the United Nations (UN) Security Council for the first time since it started punishing Pyongyang, North Korea's capital, in 2006.
As recent as this week, on Wednesday, at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, Russia and China defended North Korea's missile launches.
North Korea launched two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea in the direction of Japan earlier this week which was the sixth launch in 12 days.
North Korea has launched about 40 missiles this year and appears to be showing signs it is ready to hold its first nuclear test since 2017, officials in Seoul and Washington have said.
"Moscow’s 'special military operation' in Ukraine has ushered in a new geopolitical reality in which the Kremlin and (North Korea) may become increasingly close, perhaps even to the point of resurrecting the quasi-alliance relationship that had existed during the Cold War," Artyom Lukin, a professor at Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok, wrote in a recent report for 38 North.
Russian officials have openly discussed “working on political arrangements” to employ 20,000 to 50,000 North Korean labours, despite U.N. Security Council resolutions that ban such arrangements.
Russian officials and leaders in the breakaway regions in Ukraine have also discussed the possibility of having North Korean workers help rebuild those war-torn areas.
