International: North Korea will back Russia until it achieves victory in the Ukraine war, Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui said on Friday at talks in Moscow with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. "Our traditional, historically friendly relations, which have travelled the tested path of history, today ... are rising to a new level of relations of invincible military comradeship," she told Lavrov, praising the role played in this by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

She said Pyongyang had no doubt that under Putin's "wise leadership" the Russian army and people would "achieve a great victory in their sacred struggle to protect the sovereign rights and security interests of their state." "And we also assure that until the day of victory, we will firmly stand alongside our Russian comrades," she said.

Greeting her, Lavrov spoke of the "very close ties" between the two countries militaries and said this enabled them to solve important security tasks together.

Neither referred to statements by the United States, NATO, South Korea and Ukraine this week that North Korea has sent some 10,000 troops to Russia. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said separately on Friday that he had "nothing to add to what has already been said" about such statements.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday that 8,000 of these were in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops broke across the border into Russia in August, and that he expected them to go into combat against Ukraine in the coming days. "We are deeply grateful to our Korean friends for their principled position regarding the events that have now unfolded in Ukraine as a result of the West's course of advancing NATO to the east and encouraging an openly racist regime to exterminate everything Russian," Lavrov said.

"Very close contacts have been established between the military of the two countries and along the security services line - this also allows us to solve practically significant and important tasks for the security of our and your citizens."

Choe said the two countries needed to keep deepening their ties under a treaty signed by their leaders in June, which includes a mutual defence clause.

Moscow, which sent its army into Ukraine in February 2022, has neither denied nor directly confirmed the presence of North Korean troops on Russian soil. Putin has said it is for Russia to decide how to implement the treaty with Kim.

Choe, in televised comments and speaking through an interpreter, accused the US and South Korea of plotting a nuclear strike against her country. She provided no evidence to back her assertion but spoke of regular consultations between Washington and Seoul at which she alleged such plotting took place.

Choe, who said the situation on the Korean Peninsula could become "explosive" at any moment, told Lavrov that North Korea needed to strengthen its nuclear arsenal and perfect its readiness to deliver a retaliatory nuclear strike if necessary.