The top diplomats of North Korea and Russia blamed the U.S. and its allies for destabilizing the Korean Peninsula following a meeting in Moscow, while reaffirming their intent to strengthen bilateral military cooperation despite growing international concern over Pyongyang’s deployment of troops to support Moscow’s war efforts.

Following their “strategic dialogue” on Friday, DPRK foreign minister Choe Son Hui and her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov hailed the two countries’ increasingly close relations in line with their bilateral cooperation agreement signed in June, North Korea’s state-owned Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Saturday.

The high-level diplomatic meeting took place a