NORTH KOREAN Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un vowed “full and unconditional support” for Russian President Vladimir Putin today as the two leaders held a four-hour meeting.

The pair discussed military matters, humanitarian aid, the war in Ukraine and possible Russian help for Pyongyang’s satellite programme at the Vostochny Cosmodrome, Russia’s most important launch centre on its own soil.

In recent months, North Korea has repeatedly failed to put its first military intelligence satellite into orbit.

The United States and South Korea have raised concerns that Mr Putin is seeking the stockpiles of ageing ammunition and rockets for Soviet-era weapons, given to Pyongyang during the Korean war, in return.

In opening remarks, Mr Putin said that the talks would cover economic co-operation, humanitarian issues and the “situation in the region.”

Mr Jong Un, in turn, pledged continued support for Moscow amid the war in Ukraine.

“Russia is currently engaged in a just fight against hegemonic forces to defend its sovereign rights, security and interests,” he said.

“The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has always expressed its full and unconditional support for all measures taken by the Russian government, and I take this opportunity to reaffirm that we will always stand with Russia on the anti-imperialist front and the front of independence.”

North Korea may have tens of millions of ageing artillery shells and rockets based on Soviet designs that could bolster the Russian army in Ukraine, analysts say.

Buying arms from or providing rocket technology to North Korea would violate international sanctions that Russia has supported in the past.

Moscow’s principal priority right now is success in Ukraine, “and it would do pretty much anything in order to achieve that,” said James Nixey, director of the Russia and Eurasia programme at Chatham House, a London-based think tank.

“Russia possibly wants to settle in for a longer war, but it can’t meet the necessary industrial capacity,” he said, saying that “any deal with Kim would be to ensure that immediate needs are met and any gap is filled by the North Koreans while Russia steps up its medium- to longer-term weapons production.”

The meeting came as Russian authorities reported that a Ukrainian attack on a shipyard in Crimea wounded 24 people and caused a fire.

And Moscow offensives in 10 cities and villages in the Donetsk region killed at least three civilians and injured 14 across Ukraine.