MOSCOW, March 20. /TASS/. Several hundred Russian soldiers who were wounded in the course of the special military operation in Ukraine have undergone rehabilitation at medical centers in North Korea, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko said.
"The facts that hundreds of Russian soldiers have undergone rehabilitation at North Korea’s best medical centers and that last summer the Songdowon International Children's Camp received children whose fathers laid down their lives for their homeland are a vivid example of the brotherly nature of the current relations between our countries," he said on Wednesday at a reception at the North Korean embassy on the 76th anniversary of the treaty of economic and cultural cooperation between the former Soviet Union and North Korea.
He noted that he has just returned from Pyongyang after talks with "North Korean friends on a wide range of issues of bilateral cooperation, international and regional problems." "These days, Moscow is hosting a meeting of the co-chairs of the Russian-North Korean intergovernmental commission on trade-and-economic and scientific-and-technical cooperation," he added.
"I avail myself this opportunity to once again express cordial gratitude to our Korean friends for their strong support for the special military operation in Ukraine," the senior Russian diplomat said, adding that he is convinced that "joint efforts towards expanding and strengthening comprehensive cooperation between Russia and North Korea will serve the interests" of both countries.
North Korean Ambassador to Russia Shin Hong Chol stressed in turn that the most important current task is "to further expand practical measures to implement the agreements that were reached during the North Korean-Russia summit and invigorate bilateral exchanges and comprehensive cooperation."
"We will stand by the Russia army and people, who are defending their country’s sovereign rights and territorial integrity, until the ultimate victory," he stressed, adding that the development of friendly relations with Russia is his country’s "unshakable position.".