South Korea's defense chief Shin Won-sik said on Sunday that a return trip by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to Russia cannot be ruled out.
Such a visit would mark Kim's first since September 2023 and follows Russian President Vladimir Putin's June trip to Pyongyang, where the two leaders signed a mutual defense treaty.
The landmark treaty has strengthened their military partnership, building on over a year of North Korean shipments—believed by Seoul to contain thousands of containers of munitions destined for Ukraine's front lines.
The deployment of thousands of North Korean troops to join Russian forces on the front lines has further cemented ties between the two countries.
"It could be a reciprocal visit for Russian President Vladimir Putin's trip to North Korea in June, or it could be a visit for Putin to thank the North for its troop deployment," Shin said during a press briefing.
Newsweek reached out to the North Korean embassy in China with an emailed request for comment.
Shin added that such a meeting could involve "sensitive matters" and emphasized the need for careful monitoring.
His remarks followed South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) disclosure last week that it is closely watching for indications of a potential Kim visit.
This comes after North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui met with Putin in Moscow earlier this month.
Doo Jin-ho, a senior analyst with the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, said Kim might time a trip to see Putin to coincide with Russia's Defender of the Fatherland Day, celebrated on February 23, as a tribute to Russia's armed forces, The Korea Times reported.
The U.S. and its allies say the deployment of over 10,000 North Korean troops to join Putin's war is a major escalation. They suspect that, in exchange, Moscow could be providing advanced weaponry and technological expertise to bolster Kim's United Nations-sanctioned ballistic missile and nuclear programs.
Pyongyang and the Kremlin have neither confirmed nor denied that there are North Korean troops in Russia, though North Korea's envoy to the U.N. envoy has insisted any such deployment would comply with international law.
During Sunday's press conference, Shin also also said the North is believed to be in the "final stages" of another satellite launch attempt. "There are no signs of imminent movement to the launch pad, but we believe there is a high possibility of a launch before the end of the year," he said.
After multiple failed attempts, Pyongyang successfully placed a spy satellite into orbit in November, citing self-defense. The move violated U.N. sanctions aimed at preventing North Korea from acquiring missile-related technology.
Seoul retaliated by suspending parts of a 2018 inter-Korean agreement intended to reduce border conflict risks. North Korea then declared itself no longer bound by the pact and vowing to move troops and equipment to the border.
North Korea's last satellite launch attempt in May ended in a mid-air explosion, with officials blaming the incident on a carrier rocket malfunction.
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