North Korea slams Ukraine, UN Security Council meeting on Russia

ISTANBUL

North Korea on Tuesday slammed Kyiv, as well as an emergency session of the UN Security Council on Ukraine following Russia’s Oreshnik missile attack, state media reported.

Kim Song, Pyongyang’s permanent representative to the UN, dubbed the meeting “unusual,” which, he said, “undermined” the UN mission.

He said the Security Council convened under Ukraine's “unilateral claims never means the international support for the appeal of a ‘victim’,” said Kim, according to a statement carried by Korean Central News Agency.

“The target of denunciation and rejection is the Kiev authorities,” said Kim, calling out “Western cavilers who used to groundlessly slander the just exercise of the right to self-defense of a sovereign state.”

The Russian Defense Ministry said Monday it had struck Ukraine’s Lviv State Aviation Repair Plant with an Oreshnik missile on Jan. 9, which led to the convening of the council session in New York.

“The Ukrainian crisis was obviously caused by the confrontation policy of the US and the West which have violated Russia's reasonable and legitimate security interests and escalated NATO's eastward advance,” said Kim, the top North Korean diplomat at the world body.

“The responsibility for all the incidents lies entirely with the parties who created the preconditions for them.”

Meanwhile, Rosemary DiCarlo, UN under-secretary-general for political and peacebuilding affairs, told the Security Council that civilian deaths in Ukraine have reached their highest level in 2025, as Russia steps up aerial assaults on cities, energy systems, and civilian infrastructure amid winter conditions.

Citing data from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, she said at least 14,999 civilians have been killed, including 763 children, and 40,601 civilians injured, including 2,486 children, since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war in February 2022.