North Korea and its support for Russia's grinding war effort in Ukraine is the "worst problem" Ukraine is facing from Moscow's allies, Kyiv's military intelligence chief has said, as concerns deepen in the West over the Kremlin's increasingly close relationships with Pyongyang, China and Iran.
"The worst problem we are facing is the one coming from North Korea," Lieutenant General Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine's GUR military intelligence agency, said during an appearance at the Yalta European Security conference, organized by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, in Kyiv on Saturday.
Moscow—now a pariah for many Western countries following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022—has increasingly leaned on its circle of allies, not least North Korea.
Russia has also courted military support from Tehran, using Iranian-designed Shahed drones extensively against Ukraine. The U.S. has confirmed Moscow recently received ballistic missiles from the Middle East nation in a new phase of support for the war effort.
