Russia's defense minister Sergei Shoigu is set to lead his country's delegation to visit North Korea this week to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Victory Day or the end of the Korean War.
According to the North Korean state media agency KCNA, China will also send its own delegation to the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, which will be headed by Chinese Communist Party Politburo member Li Hongzhong.
Both Moscow and Beijing were invited by North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un to its victory day celebrations on July 27, the anniversary of the armistice in 1953 which brought an end to the bloody fighting in the peninsula, which involved the US, China, and Russia's predecessor state, the Soviet Union. The two countries would be the first public visitors to Pyongyang since it closed its borders in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
2023 marks the 70th anniversary of the armistice, which left the Korean peninsula divided and millions of families split by the so-called Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea.
North Korean state media reported this year's celebration would include a major military parade in the streets of Pyongyang.
Meanwhile, the US has accused North Korea of providing military aid to Russia for its war in Ukraine, a claim both Pyongyang and Moscow deny. In response, North Korea has blamed Washington for the crisis in Ukraine, insisting that the West's "hegemonic policy" forced Russia to take military action to protect its security interests.
Recently, Shoigu and Russian Armed Forces chief of staff Valery Gerasimov were accused by Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin of abandoning them while they fought in the city of Bakhmut. The Wagner boss specifically complained that Shoigu and Gerasimov were withholding ammunition supplies to his mercenaries, which eventually convinced the group to occupy Rostov-on-Don and attempt to march to Moscow until they decided to call it off.
Since then, Wagner has regrouped in Belarus at the behest of its leader Alexander Lukashenko, with evidence of Prigozhin's whereabouts in the midst of his troops detected in a recent video last week.
US, UN Has Conflicting Statements About Talks with North Korea on Travis King
On the other hand, the United Nations (UN) Command said Monday (July 24) a conversation has "commenced" with North Korea over US Army deserter Pvt. Travis King, who crossed the border between the two Koreas "willfully and without authorization" last week near the truce village of Panmunjom.
UN Command deputy commander Gen. Andrew Harrison said King's case is still under investigation and he could not provide any further detail on the deserter, CNN reported, but they still make his welfare their primary concern as the process goes forward.
However, US State Department spokesperson Matt Miller told reporters he was not aware of any new communication efforts other than those that happened in the first few hours of his disappearance.
King was supposed to be returned to the US to face a court martial and possible administrative separation after allegedly being involved in criminal charges in South Korea. However, he did not board the plane to the US but instead joined a tourist group to the DMZ. He was last seen and heard by tourists laughing as he crossed into the North Korean side of the border.
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