The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said that Russia’s war in Ukraine “is the most immediate and acute threat to the international order enshrined in the UN charter and its core principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence” in a speech delivered to the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
Kim Jong-un has pledged to support all of Russia’s decisions as he met Vladimir Putin during a rare trip outside North Korea. Speaking at Russia’s Vostochny cosmodrome, Kim said “Russia has risen to a sacred fight to protect its sovereignty and security. We will always support the decisions of President Putin and the Russian leadership … and we will be together in the fight against imperialism.”
Putin welcomed Kim, saying: “We, of course, need to talk about questions of economic cooperation and questions of a humanitarian nature. We have a lot of questions.” The US has suggested that Russia is seeking North Korean military hardware to aid in the invasion of Ukraine. North Korea has previously denied supplying weapons to Moscow. The two leaders made brief comments in public before holding private talks.
The US state department on Wednesday said that the Biden administration “won’t hesitate” to impose additional sanctions on Russia and North Korea if they establish further new arms deals. “We have taken a number of actions already to sanction entities that brokered arms sales between North Korea and Russia and we won’t hesitate to impose additional sanctions if appropriate,” state department spokesperson Matthew Miller said during a briefing.
