Russia’s top diplomat received his North Korean counterpart for talks on Friday amid reports that Pyongyang sent thousands of troops to Russia to support its army in the war in Ukraine.

Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui’s visit to Moscow and meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov follows the Pentagon’s statement that North Korea has deployed around 10,000 troops to Russia to fight against Ukraine in “the coming weeks”.

Western leaders have described the North Korean troop deployment as a significant escalation that could also upend relations in the Indo-Pacific region.

Neither Moscow nor Pyongyang has specified the agenda of Choe’s talks in Moscow, but in a closed-door hearing in South Korea’s parliament, South Korea’s intelligence agency said Choe may be involved in high-level discussions about sending additional troops to Russia and negotiating what North would receive in return.

South Korean and Western officials have expressed concern that Russia could offer technology that could enhance the threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile program.

During his meeting with Choe on Friday in Moscow, Lavrov praised ties between Moscow and Pyongyang, saying they “have reached an unprecedented level in recent years”, and offered to discuss the implementation of the he strategic partnership agreement that the two countries signed earlier this year.

“We will hold discussions on a range of issues regarding politics and foreign policy as well as issues that require a joint response between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Russian Federation,” Choe said, using the official name of the North.

She reiterated Pyongyang’s support “for the just fight of the Russian army and people to defend their country’s sovereign rights and security interests” in Ukraine.

Moscow and Pyongyang have responded vaguely to South Korean and Western claims about the deployment of North Korean troops in Russia, emphasizing that their military cooperation is consistent with international law, without directly admitting the presence of North Korean forces in Russia.

The United States and its allies have also accused North Korea of ​​supplying millions of artillery shells and other equipment to Russia to fuel its military action in Ukraine.

Russia, alongside China, blocked U.S.-led efforts at the U.N. Security Council to strengthen sanctions on North Korea over its recent missile tests, which intensified after the Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Russia also vetoed a UN resolution to extend the UN mandate. in March, in a move that effectively abolished U.N. experts’ oversight of Security Council sanctions against North Korea.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol raised the possibility of supplying weapons to Ukraine last month, while saying Seoul was preparing countermeasures that could be deployed in stages depending on the degree of military cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow.

South Korea, a growing arms exporter, has provided humanitarian aid and other non-lethal support to Ukraine and joined U.S.-led economic sanctions against Moscow. It has so far resisted calls from kyiv and NATO to directly supply weapons to Ukraine, citing a long-standing policy of not supplying weapons to countries engaged in active conflict.

In other developments:

— Russia launched three aerial missiles and 48 drones of different types, including Shahed, on Ukraine overnight, the Ukrainian Air Force said. One missile and 31 drones were intercepted, 14 drones were jammed and three drones flew towards the territory of Belarus, the Air Force said in a report Friday morning. Several civilian facilities, as well as apartment buildings and private houses in the Poltava, Cherkasy, kyiv and Odessa regions, were damaged by drone debris.

— The Russian military said Friday it had intercepted and destroyed a total of 83 Ukrainian drones over four Russian regions near the border with Ukraine and the annexed Crimean peninsula. In the Bryansk region, a drone hit a residential building, local authorities said. No casualties have been reported. In the Stavropol region, a drone hit an oil depot, according to local authorities. According to unconfirmed media reports, the depot caught fire.

— Lavrov plans to attend an international meeting in December in Malta, which would be his first trip to a European Union country since the start of the war, the Vedomosti newspaper quoted ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying. . Lavrov plans to travel for a meeting of foreign ministers of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, according to the report.

The OSCE includes countries strongly opposed to the war in Ukraine, including the United States and many European countries, as well as supporters of Belarus and former Soviet states in Central Asia who take neutral positions.