North Korean leader Kim Jong Un plans to travel to Russia this month to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss the possibility of supplying weapons for the war in Ukraine, the New York Times reported on Monday, citing US and allied sources.
Kim would travel from Pyongyang, probably by armored train, to Vladivostok, on the Pacific Coast of Russia, where he would meet with Putin, the newspaper said.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The planned trip would come as Russia discusses holding joint military exercises with North Korea and after Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu had tried on a visit to North Korea to convince Pyongyang to sell artillery ammunition to Russia.
The US has previously warned that North Korea could provide more weapons to Russia, whose forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022, a war that the United States and its European allies vehemently oppose and that Moscow calls a "special military operation."
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said on Aug. 30 that the United States was concerned that arms negotiations between the two countries were advancing actively.
US forces bombed targets in southern Iran overnight after President Donald Trump said Tehran would pay dearly for the deaths of American soldiers, while Iran targeted US sites in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan and a tanker was hit in the Strait of Hormuz.
Lebanese army troops began deploying in the southern Lebanese town of Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh on Tuesday after Israeli forces withdrew from the area, a senior Lebanese security official said, in line with a US-brokered plan.
Kuwait's Ministry of Foreign Affairs today summoned Iranian Ambassador Mohammad Totonchi to deliver a formal protest note over Iran's targeting of the Kuwaiti tanker Kaifan in the Strait of Hormuz on Monday evening, which resulted in injuries to several crew members.
A Russian guided-bomb attack on the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia killed at least three people on Tuesday and injured more than a dozen, regional officials said.
French lawmakers approved on Tuesday a ban on social media access for children under the age of 15, as concerns grow around the world over the impact social media have on the health and safety of minors.