Ukraine Pushes South, but Faces Obstacles in Counteroffensive

Follow live updates on Russia’s war in Ukraine.

A day after U.S. officials said that Ukraine had begun the main thrust of its counteroffensive, Kyiv said it was pushing on two fronts, as President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said fighting had intensified.

Ukraine aims to drive a wedge through Russian-occupied territory in the south.

A Ukrainian fencer is disqualified after refusing to shake hands with a Russian opponent.

Putin promises free grain for some African nations, trying to shore up Moscow’s image.

Russia’s promise of free grain reflects the Kremlin’s priorities in Africa.

Amid an escalating conflict with the West, Putin tries to position himself as in control.

Unverified photographs of Prigozhin surface as African leaders convene in St. Petersburg.

Russian forces strike the Odesa port, killing one, Ukraine’s military says.

The goal of Ukraine’s counteroffensive in the south is straightforward: Reach the Sea of Azov and drive a wedge through Russian-occupied territory.

But the execution has proved difficult: Ukraine’s forces must punch through dense minefields, tank traps and other obstacles, under withering air assaults and artillery bombardments, across multiple Russian defensive lines, and then push some 60 miles to the sea.

On Thursday, the Ukrainian military said its forces were pushing south along two lines of attack in southern Ukraine, driving toward the cities of Melitopol and Berdiansk. In the east, officials said Ukrainian troops had liberated the village of Staromaiorske in the Donetsk region, a few miles south of a cluster of small settlements along a river that Ukraine recaptured in early June.

Earlier in the day, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia acknowledged that attacks had escalated “in a significant way” in southern Ukraine, but he maintained that Russia had repelled the assaults and claimed the Ukrainians had endured “heavy losses.”

KHARKIV

HELD BY

RUSSIA

LUHANSK

UKRAINE

Luhansk

Bakhmut

Ukraine’s three

major fronts

Donetsk

Main effort,

per U.S.

officials

Staromaiorske

Orikhiv

DONETSK

RUSSIA

Robotyne

Tokmak

Mariupol

ZAPORIZHZHIA

Melitopol

Berdiansk

Detail

area

Kyiv

UKRAINE

SEA OF

AZOV

RUSSIA

Kharkiv

KHARKIV

HELD BY

RUSSIA

LUHANSK

UKRAINE

Ukraine’s three

major fronts

Bakhmut

Main effort,

per U.S.

officials

Donetsk

Staromaiorske

Orikhiv

DONETSK

Robotyne

Tokmak

Mariupol

ZAPORIZHZHIA

Detail

area

Melitopol

Berdiansk

Kyiv

UKRAINE

SEA OF

AZOV

Sources: New York Times reporting; Institute for the Study of War with American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project.

By Lauren Leatherby/The New York Times

The comments came the day after what U.S. officials have described as the start of Ukraine’s main thrust in its counteroffensive in the Zaporizhzhia region, involving thousands of soldiers newly outfitted with Western arms.

If the Ukrainians succeed in their quest to reach the Sea of Azov, they will divide the Russian occupied south into two zones, effectively cutting the overland route from Russia to the occupied Crimean Peninsula and greatly compromising Russia’s ability to resupply its forces farther west.

But the initial push started late as Ukraine waited to build up its stocks of Western weapons and to train brigades, giving Russian forces time to dig in. In keeping with the old military axiom, the plan did not survive first contact with the enemy.

There were heavy losses in the first two weeks of the operation, and Ukrainian forces managed to claw back only five of the 60 miles they had hoped to cover to reach the sea.

So Ukrainian military commanders paused and adjusted, focusing more on wearing down the Russian forces with artillery and long-range missiles than charging into enemy minefields under fire.

Day after day, the Ukrainian military reports on dozens of strikes aimed at taking out Russian command-and-control centers, ammunition depots, troop concentrations, air defense systems, rocket launchers and logistical operations.

On the ground, Ukrainian forces have been trying to break through Russian lines south of the Ukrainian-held town of Orikhiv, in an effort to drive toward the Sea of Azov and the heavily fortified city of Melitopol, which at the crossroads of two major highways and a crucial rail line.

The Ukrainians are also pressing toward the sea along another axis, in the direction of Berdiansk, a port city about 70 miles east of Melitopol. The Ukrainian military has reported progress in that direction but that has largely been measured in yards not miles. The village Ukraine captured on Thursday, Staromaiorske, lies about 95 miles north of the Berdiansk.

Yevhen Dykyi, a former company commander of the Aidar battalion, warned that if the Ukrainians fail to achieve a major breakthrough in coming weeks, it could mean they will have exhausted their forces and the fighting will grind on.

But “distances in war are very nonlinear,” he said. “There are kilometers that need to be broken through for months, and then there are hundreds of kilometers that can be covered in a day,” he said.

— Marc Santora reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine

Olga Kharlan, a four-time Olympic fencing medalist, was disqualified from the World Fencing Championships in Milan on Thursday after refusing to shake hands with her Russian opponent.

After Ms. Kharlan defeated Anna Smirnova, a Russian competitor who had joined the competition with a neutral status, Ms. Smirnova extended her hand to Ms. Kharlan, who extended her saber instead. According to the sport’s rules, a fencing bout does not end until the two fencers have saluted each other and shaken hands, and the referee can penalize those who do not comply.

The Ukrainian Fencing Federation said on Thursday that Ms. Kharlan had “convincingly” won and would appeal the disqualification.

Several Ukrainian political officials condemned the disqualification, tying it directly to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Anna Smirnova lost the fair competition and decided to play dirty with the handshake show,” Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, said on Twitter, adding that Ms. Smirnova’s conduct was exactly how the “Russian army acts on the battlefield.”

Ruslan Stefanchuk, the Ukrainian Speaker of Parliament, praised Ms. Kharlan on the Telegram messaging app, writing that not shaking hands “is a sophisticated form of just ignoring terrorists with no name, no honour, no flag under which they compete.”

Ms. Kharlan, 32, is among the world’s top fencers, having won a gold medal in the team saber competition at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. Since then, she also has two bronze medals and a silver in Olympic competition.

Russia and Belarus were not invited by the International Olympic Committee to compete as nations in next year’s Summer Olympics in Paris. But it is possible that fencers from both countries will be able to participate as neutral athletes, without their national flags or anthems, so long as they meet certain requirements, such as not having shown public support for the invasion.

With war as a backdrop, drama in the sport has been playing out in the United States and elsewhere this summer. Three fencers who left Russia and denounced the invasion competed as neutral athletes at the United States summer championships earlier this month in Phoenix. This departure was so embarrassing to the Russians that it led to the firing of the country’s top épée coach.

On Wednesday, Igor Reizlin, a Ukrainian fencer, withdrew from his competition against a Russian opponent at the world championships in Milan.

One former top Russian fencer expressed his sympathy for Ms. Kharlan on Thursday. Konstantin Lokhanov, who participated for Russia in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and now lives in San Diego, said in an interview that he thought the disqualification of Ms. Kharlan might have been a trap set by her Russian opponent. Unless overturned, the disqualification in the individual saber competition also could prevent Ms. Kharlan from competing in the team fencing competition at the world championships.

On the one hand, the International Fencing Federation had little choice but to adhere to its rules about shaking hands, said Mr. Lokhanov, who is the former husband of a Russian Olympic fencing champion and the former son-in-law of the president of the Russian Olympic Committee. On the other hand, Mr. Lokhanov said, the tapping of blades was the accepted acknowledgment of an opponent during the pandemic and is still considered suitable by many fencers.

“I support Olga,” he said. “In my opinion she made the right decision. I understand why she made it. But I don’t see any reason why this Russian woman had to make that drama. She could have just touched blades; the bout was over.”

Marc Santora contributed reporting.

— Gabriela Sá Pessoa and Jeré Longman

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia pledged on Thursday to ship free grain to at least six African countries over the next four months, scrambling to shore up Moscow’s image on the continent in the wake of the Kremlin’s refusal to extend a deal that had protected Ukrainian grain exports that help feed millions of people around the world.

Mr. Putin, speaking at a summit for African countries in St. Petersburg that drew far fewer African leaders than its 2019 iteration, insisted in a keynote speech that Western hypocrisy rather than Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was to blame for disruptions in the global food supply.

“Nothing happened of what was discussed and promised to us,” Mr. Putin said, repeating his assertion that the West had failed to fulfill its end of the grain deal and had done nothing to clear the way for Russian food and fertilizer exports.

He added that those casting Russia as an unreliable food supplier were “telling lies,” which he said had “been the practice of some Western states for decades, if not centuries.”

Russia’s exit from the grain deal last week drew a global outcry, putting Mr. Putin on the defensive amid his long-running effort to draw African countries to Russia’s side in its geopolitical conflict with the United States. The pomp of the summit on Thursday in the storied city St. Petersburg — the Russian imperial capital built by Peter the Great, and also Mr. Putin’s hometown — appeared intended to signal to African leaders that Russia was their true friend.

Mr. Putin said that Russia would deliver 25,000 to 50,000 tons of free grain each to Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic, Eritrea, Mali, Somalia and Zimbabwe in the next three to four months.

“We will also provide for the free delivery of the products to the consumers,” he said.

Despite Mr. Putin’s profession of charity, there appeared to be a geopolitical undertone to the list of recipients of free Russian grain. Of the six, only Somalia voted against Russia at the United Nations in February in supporting a resolution that called for an end to the war in Ukraine. In Mali and the Central African Republic, Russia’s Wagner mercenary group has propped up authoritarian governments.

The Kremlin also sought to portray Russia as a spiritual ally of Africa — as a bastion of conservative values, in contrast to a godless West.

— Anton Troianovski and Declan Walsh

The six countries that Russian President Vladimir V. Putin chose to provide with free grain reflect Russia’s foreign policy priorities in Africa, despite Mr. Putin’s claim to be sending food for purely charitable motives.

On Thursday, Mr. Putin announced at a meeting with African leaders that, over the next few months, Russia would deliver 25,000 to 50,000 tons of free grain each to Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic, Eritrea, Mali, Somalia and Zimbabwe.

Five of those countries voted against Russia at the United Nations in February in supporting a resolution that called for an end to the war in Ukraine.

Two of them, Mali and the Central African Republic, have relied on Russia’s Wagner mercenaries to prop up their authoritarian governments and are now being rewarded for their loyalty to Moscow. In a third, Burkina Faso, Russia and the Wagner mercenaries are trying to expand their foothold.

Two others, Eritrea and Zimbabwe, are already pariahs in the West, and the promise of grain only brings them closer to Moscow.

Somalia is the only country among the six that did not stand with Russia at the United Nations in February, but recently its leaders have also shown signs of drawing closer to Moscow. The Somali foreign minister visited Moscow in May, and the Kremlin promised to support Somalia’s calls to lift international sanctions, including an arms embargo, Russia’s Tass state news agency reported.

And while sending grain to Mogadishu may seem to be a humanitarian action from the Kremlin, it is also likely meant to counter the millions of dollars the United States has pledged to help end the famine in the Horn of Africa earlier this year.

Other African leaders, however, may be left disappointed if the grain shipments are all Russia has to offer the continent. At the last summit in Sochi in 2019, the Kremlin promised to double its trade with Africa and to broaden economic ties beyond its four main trading partners — Egypt, Algeria, Morocco and South Africa.

Russia’s wartime economy, though, may struggle to make good on these promises, said Mvemba Dizolele, who heads the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“Africa has a trust deficit with the West,” he said. “That does not mean they have a trust surplus with Russia.”

Wandile Sihlobo, an agricultural economist in South Africa, said that Mr. Putin’s promise of grain did not negate the need to restart the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a U.N.-brokered deal that for a year let Ukraine export grain through a Russian blockade. Many African nations benefited from the deal in the decline of grain prices, he said, which “eased food security concerns for households.”

“The grain deal must be re-established,” he said. “African leaders should emphasize this issue and not be lured by the Kremlin through free grain supplies.”

Russia also offered a spiritual allegiance to African leaders, as the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill I, railed against Western “anti-values” such as gay rights. This messaging may have appealed to conservative leaders like Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, who has faced international criticism for passing a harsh anti-gay law. Mr. Museveni posted online an image of a grinning handshake with Mr. Putin.

“It’s one way of saying, we’re on the same wavelength as you,” Mr. Dizolele said.

— Lynsey Chutel and John Eligon

On Thursday, President Vladimir V. Putin took a break from his marathon of meetings with African leaders in St. Petersburg to speak to Russian state television about what he insists is a failing Ukrainian counteroffensive.

The Russian leader claimed that the latest attack by Ukrainian forces had been pushed back with heavy losses. “Today they tried to pick up abandoned wrecked equipment, the wounded and the bodies of the dead,” Mr. Putin said, standing in a bare room, a Covid-safe distance away from the television reporter holding out a microphone. “But they were also dispersed.”

It was the latest instance of Mr. Putin trying to telegraph that he was in control as the stakes in his war against Ukraine continued to rise. In recent weeks, Mr. Putin has shown how he sees the war as part of a global conflict, one that is encompassing worldwide trade, the Black Sea region and the continent of Africa.

On the ground, Kyiv’s counteroffensive is moving more slowly than many in the West had hoped, and Mr. Putin has rushed to claim the credit. He has repeatedly asserted tactical successes by the Russian military since early June — in contrast to earlier periods in the 17-month war, when Mr. Putin went weeks without discussing events on the battlefield.

“Today, on my instructions, right in the combat zone, our guys will be awarded state awards,” Mr. Putin said in Thursday’s brief interview, after rattling off numbers — 26 tanks, 13 armored vehicles — of allegedly destroyed Ukrainian military equipment, without evidence.

The comments were Mr. Putin’s first on what American officials described on Wednesday as a new phase in the war, involving thousands of Western-armed Ukrainian soldiers seeking to retake Russian-held territory in Ukraine’s southeast and cut off Russia’s overland link to Crimea. But they were also part of Mr. Putin’s overall intensification of his conflict with the West.

In and around the Black Sea, where Russia and Ukraine share the northern coastline, Mr. Putin seems more prepared than ever to risk a direct confrontation with NATO. His forces on Monday bombarded a Ukrainian port just across the Danube River from Romania, a NATO member. And Russia’s Defense Ministry last week signaled that any commercial ship bound for Ukraine in the Black Sea could be considered a military target.

— Anton Troianovski

Unverified photographs began circulating on social media Thursday suggesting that Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the Russian mercenary boss who led a short-lived mutiny in June, was meeting with African officials in St. Petersburg, where some of the continent’s top leaders have converged for a summit with President Vladimir V. Putin.

The whereabouts and status of Mr. Prigozhin, a caterer turned warlord, have been the subject of continuing questions since he tried to topple the Russian defense leadership last month, posing the biggest security threat to Mr. Putin’s government in decades.

Questions also have persisted about what will become of Mr. Prigozhin’s operations in Africa, where his Wagner forces are active in a number of countries, including the Central African Republic and Mali.

The unverified images suggested not only that Mr. Prigozhin was moving freely in Russia but that he also had access to figures attending a major diplomatic event, suggesting the Kremlin may be endeavoring to harness his contacts and political good will in Africa despite the mutiny.

The first photograph that appeared to connect Mr. Prigozhin to the summit surfaced on a Facebook account registered in the name of Dmitri Sytyi, a Russian national on whom the U.S. Treasury has imposed sanctions and described as an employee of Mr. Prigozhin in the Central African Republic. Neither the account nor the photograph could be independently verified.

The photograph shows Mr. Prigozhin shaking hands with a man described in news media reports as a top official from the Central African Republic. They are standing beside what appeared to be an elevator in the Trezzini Palace, a luxury hotel in St. Petersburg long associated with Mr. Prigozhin.

The hotel is about 40 minutes by car from the conference venue for the Russia-Africa summit, suggesting that Mr. Prigozhin may have been meeting with attendees one-on-one outside the confines of the event rather than attending it. In the photograph, the African official appears to be wearing the multicolored lanyard from the summit.

Another photograph appeared on a Telegram channel associated with Wagner later in the day, showing Mr. Prigozhin dressed in the same white button-down shirt and bluejeans, meeting with an executive from an African media conglomerate known for espousing pro-Kremlin views.

The location of the meeting was unknown. In the image, Mr. Prigozhin is standing in front of a large map of Africa. A Telegram channel associated with Wagner described the photograph as a meeting with the director of Afrique Média, a television channel based in Cameroon that has a partnership with the Russian state television network RT.

Afrique Média did not respond to a request for comment.

A video appeared on Russian social media last week that apparently showed Mr. Prigozhin addressing his Wagner forces in Belarus, where the Kremlin said the mercenary boss would be moving as part of a deal he struck with Mr. Putin to stop the mutiny.

In the days since then, however, Mr. Prigozhin has been spotted in Russia, raising questions about whether he indeed will retreat into an agreed-upon exile in Belarus, the neighboring nation closely allied with Moscow.

— Paul Sonne

Russian forces launched another barrage of missiles against the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa overnight, killing a port employee and damaging cargo terminals and administrative buildings, Ukraine’s military said on Thursday.

The attack was another sign of Moscow’s apparent determination to thwart possible Ukrainian grain shipments across the Black Sea.

“The occupiers fired Kalibr missiles from a submarine in the Black Sea at a critically low altitude, which made it difficult to detect,” the Ukrainian military’s southern command said in a statement on the Telegram app.

Russia has repeatedly attacked Odesa’s port facilities since July 17, when it terminated a deal that had allowed Ukraine, an important grain exporter, to ship its produce across the Black Sea, where Russia’s Navy is dominant. That day, one person was confirmed killed and 22 were wounded in the city in an overnight attack, and the death toll rose to two on Thursday when rescue workers found the body of a woman under the rubble, according to the city authorities.

Moscow’s withdrawal from the deal, called the Black Sea Grain Initiative and backed by the United Nations, has imperiled Ukraine’s ability to ship its grain by sea to world markets, which had helped keep global food prices stable. Kyiv’s exports were further damaged this week when Russian drones targeted the Danube River port of Reni, part of a network of alternative Ukrainian export routes.

Britain’s military intelligence agency said this week that Russia could seek to enforce a naval blockade of Ukraine. Britain’s ambassador to the United Nations, Barbara Woodward, has also warned that Russia might try to sink a commercial vessel in the Black Sea.

Adding to tensions over the waterway, Russia’s state security agency, the F.S.B., said on Thursday that it had found traces of explosives on a cargo ship bound for the Russian port of Rostov-on-Don that had previously docked at Reni. The Reni port was not covered by the Black Sea Grain Initiative, under which vessels were inspected to ensure that they were not carrying military cargo.

The F.S.B. statement, the second of its kind this week, came amid concerns that Russia would cite the threat of attacks as justification for not rejoining the grain initiative.

— Matthew Mpoke Bigg

As President Vladimir V. Putin courted African leaders in the stately environs of St. Petersburg, reality challenged the Kremlin’s contention that Russia was a trusted partner for the vast continent’s disparate nations.

Only 21 of Africa’s top leaders had confirmed their attendance at the Russia-Africa summit as of Tuesday, according to the Kremlin’s foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov; dozens of other participating countries were being represented by ministers or senior officials.

By way of comparison, 45 heads of state or government attended the last Russia-Africa summit, in Sochi, in 2019. And nearly 50 African leaders attended a summit in Washington in December, at which President Biden announced billions of dollars in aid and investment.

Among those attending this year are President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa; President Macky Sall of Senegal; and the current chairman of the African Union, President Azali Assoumani of the Comoros. The three were part of a delegation of African leaders who traveled to Ukraine and Russia in June in a fruitless attempt to broker an end to the war.

The Kremlin said this week that Mr. Putin would hold meetings with each of the African leaders in attendance. One video released by Russian state media on Thursday showed Mr. Putin hugging Mr. Ramaphosa and telling him “good to see you,” in English.

But Mr. Ramaphosa, despite a history of South African friendship with Moscow dating back to the Soviet era, is among the African leaders avoiding a full-fledged geopolitical embrace. He announced last week that Mr. Putin would not attend an upcoming summit in South Africa “by mutual agreement,” amid concerns that South Africa would be obliged to arrest him because Mr. Putin is wanted by an international court that has accused him of war crimes in Ukraine.

Mr. Putin had long made efforts to reinvigorate Russia’s ties to African nations with military aid, trade and energy development, as part of a campaign to re-establish a global status lost when the Soviet Union crumbled three decades ago. Since his full-scale invasion of Ukraine early last year, with the West piling on sanctions, he has sought to pull Africa even closer.

But Russia offers little or no help in some areas of importance to most African countries, like climate change, debt relief and technology. It also has competition: China has made far more investments in African infrastructure and has established a far larger trade relationship. And the United States has been seeking to draw many African nations into the broad coalition of support for Ukraine.

Now, with the Russian economy and budget under the strain of war, Mr. Putin has fewer lures to offer, just as the war’s damage is rippling out through Africa.

And for some fragile, authoritarian governments, like those of the Central African Republic and Mali, a big question is the future of the newly unstable Wagner mercenary force, which had propped them up in exchange for control of natural resources.

— Anton Troianovski and Declan Walsh

On Russian state television, explosions on the roadway of a 12-mile bridge are no reason to cancel your vacation to the beaches of the Crimean Peninsula, even with a war raging nearby on mainland Ukraine.

The last words of the TV correspondent Alyona Svistelnikova on the above episode of Crimea 24’s “Time Will Tell” program sum up a running theme of Russian state TV after an apparent Ukrainian strike on a critical bridge linking Crimea and Russia.

Over and over again since Russia invaded Ukraine last year, Russian government officials and the assorted hosts, pundits and commentators of state television have played that note: Everything is fine.

The theme persisted even after the Russian authorities said they destroyed two attack drones targeting central Moscow this week. Mayor Sergei Sobyanin of Moscow reported drone strikes briefly on his Telegram account, saying there was no “serious damage or casualties.”

Then, after a short statement the next day, he moved on to usual programming: His next post was about Moscow’s top medical care, with photos of gleaming hospitals.

The war in Ukraine — and the flashes of violence in Crimea and Russia’s border regions — often comes up in news programs. But it is usually paired with remarks from President Vladimir V. Putin or other officials who insist that Russia’s military is doing well.

The Kremlin has sought to keep Russians supportive of the war by making sure they don’t feel its consequences too keenly. To that end, Russian officials try to project an air of confidence and competence in the face of any obstacle.

When the United States announces new weapons or ammunition for Ukraine, for instance, Russian leaders present a sanguine front. As U.S.-provided cluster munitions began arriving in Ukraine in recent days, Mr. Putin told a reporter — for a program titled “Moscow. Kremlin. Putin.” — that the delivery was a sign of Ukraine’s supply shortages, a contrast to Russia’s well-stocked supples.

He has also said that Russia has its own cluster munitions and that his forces are ready if the weapons are used against them. There is evidence that both Ukraine and Russia have used cluster munitions, which are widely banned, though not by Russia, Ukraine or the United States.

The airwaves are also full of all the usual programming — talent contests, dating shows, prestige dramas, and sci-fi and historical fiction — along with the steady drumbeat of news coverage delivered by state employees. They often seek to directly reassure the public, as Ms. Svistelnikova did, and blanket their broadcasts with images of normal Russian life.

“Everything is wonderful — summer, sea and sun,” Ms. Svistelnikova told viewers, after saying that Crimea’s hotels had rooms and beds ready. “Crimea is waiting for every guest with open arms!”

This is one in an occasional series breaking down how Russia is selling the war at home, as TV and other propaganda outlets create a distorted reality of what’s happening and who is responsible.

— Alan Yuhas

North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, vowed to expand military cooperation with Moscow in its confrontation with the United States as the Russian defense minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, led a delegation to Pyongyang, the North Korean state news media reported on Thursday.​

During a meeting on Wednesday, Mr. Kim and Mr. Shoigu discussed increasing “strategic and tactical collaboration and cooperation” in national security “to cope with the ever-changing regional and international security environment,” the North’s official Korean Central News Agency​ said on Thursday.

The news agency did not directly mention​ Russia’s war in Ukraine. But in a separate meeting with Mr. Shoigu on Wednesday, Mr. Kim’s defense minister, Kang Sun Nam​, identified the United States as a “common enemy” of their two countries.

“The present conflicting international military and political situation requires the armies of the two countries to resolutely stand against” the United States “and further strengthen their mutual cooperation and collaboration​,” Mr. Kang was quoted as saying.

M​r. Shoigu​ led his delegation to Pyongyang to celebrate the 70th anniversary on Thursday of the 1953 armistice that halted the three-year Korean War. It came on the same day that President Vladimir V. Putin opened a summit with African leaders in St. Petersburg, another effort by Russia to demonstrate its international ties as it grows more isolated from Western countries over its invasion of Ukraine.

The White House has accused North Korea of supplying infantry rockets and missiles​ to Russia for use in Ukraine, which Pyongyang has denied.

Russia helped install a Communist government in the northern half of the Korean Peninsula at the end of World War II and supported ​its invasion of the pro-American South to start the Korean War in 1950. Although the war ended in a truce, North Korea celebrates the armistice day as a “war victory day.”

Mr. Kim celebrated military ties between the two nations on Wednesday when he took Mr. Shoigu to a weapons exhibition​ in Pyongyang, where the North’s newest weapons, including its intercontinental ballistic missiles and what appeared to be unmanned aerial vehicles, were on display.

It was a matter of “mutual concern​” for Pyongyang and Moscow to cope with “the highhanded and arbitrary practices of the imperialists​,” Mr. Kim said in another meeting with Mr. Shoigu on Wednesday, using a term that he employs when referring to the United States.

— Choe Sang-Hun reporting from Seoul