Russia and China's foreign ministers on Sunday discussed their relations with the United States and the prospects for ending the war in Ukraine, Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement.
President Vladimir Putin's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, in Beijing on Sunday. Lavrov is due to attend a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization's (SCO) foreign ministers in China.
"The parties also discussed relations with the United States and prospects for resolving the Ukrainian crisis," the foreign ministry said.
"The importance of strengthening close coordination between the two countries in the international arena, including in the United Nations and its Security Council, the SCO, BRICS, the G20 and APEC, was emphasized," the ministry said.
China and Russia declared a "no limits" partnership in February 2022 when Putin visited Beijing, days before he sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine. Putin has sometimes described China as an "ally."
The US casts China as its biggest competitor and Russia as its biggest nation-state threat.
North Korea promises unconditional support
Similarly, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un told Lavrov was ready to "unconditionally support" Moscow's every effort to resolve the conflict in Ukraine, state media reported on Sunday, as the two countries held high-level strategic talks.
Lavrov was on a three-day visit to North Korea, which has provided troops and arms for Russia's war in Ukraine and has pledged more military support as Moscow tries to make advances in the conflict.
Kim met Lavrov in the eastern coastal city of Wonsan where the two countries' foreign ministers held their second strategic dialog, pledging further cooperation under a partnership treaty signed last year that includes a mutual defense pact.
Kim told Lavrov the steps taken by the allies in response to radically evolving global geopolitics will contribute greatly to securing peace and security around the world, North Korea's state news agency KCNA reported.
"Kim Jong Un reaffirmed the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) is ready to unconditionally support and encourage all the measures taken by the Russian leadership as regards the tackling of the root cause of the Ukrainian crisis," KCNA said.
Lavrov earlier held talks with his North Korean counterpart Choe Son Hui in Wonsan, and they issued a joint statement pledging support to safeguard the national sovereignty and territorial integrity of each other's country, KCNA said.
Later on Sunday, North Korea's Defence Ministry said in a statement it stood ready to take military action to counter any security threat, in a warning against South Korea, Japan, and the United States following a recent aerial drill by the allies.
On Saturday, Lavrov described Russian-North Korean ties as "an invincible fighting brotherhood" in his meeting with Kim and thanked him for the troops deployed to Russia, according to Russian media.
Ukrainian forces killed Russian secret service agents on Sunday in the Kyiv region during an operation by the Ukrainian intelligence agency to arrest them on suspicion of having shot dead an SBU colonel last week.
In a statement on Telegram, the SBU said it believed agents of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) had been behind the killing of SBU colonel Ivan Voronych in Kyiv on Thursday and that it had tried to detain them on Sunday.
The SBU said two people were suspected of having killed Voronych, a man and a woman. It did not say how many suspected FSB agents had been killed in Sunday's incident.