On Thursday, North Korea accused the United States of pushing the Ukraine crisis towards a potential global nuclear catastrophe by providing F-16 fighter jets to the Ukrainian forces. North Korea further stated that Washington had no authority to criticize Pyongyang’s military collaboration with Russia.
North Korea has previously condemned Washington for supplying arms including cluster munitions to Ukraine and denied that it had provided artillery, rockets and missiles to Russia despite its support of Moscow over its war with Ukraine.

The United States has “no legal right or moral justification to criticize normal cooperation between sovereign states in the defense field,” the North’s Defense Minister Kang Sun Nam said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.
Pyongyang has sought to deepen relations with Russia and last month invited Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to events marking the 70th anniversary of the end of the Korean War.

“The United States is responsible for driving the Ukraine crisis to the brink of a global nuclear war by supplying F-16 fighter jets to the Zelenskyy puppet regime,” Kang said, referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

“We once again send full support and solidarity to the Russian people’s fight of justice waged to defend its sovereign rights and achieve international justice and will increase by hundredfold the military friendship with Russia,” he said.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, calling it a “special military operation” to eliminate security threats arising from Kyiv’s deepening ties with the West. Kyiv and its Western supporters call Russia’s actions an unprovoked war of conquest.

The United States has approved sending F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine from Denmark and the Netherlands to help Kyiv in its counter-offensive against Russian forces.