Ukraine Cuts Ties With North Korea Over Recognition of Donbass Republics

Earlier in the day, Donetsk People's Republic head Denis Pushilin announced that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea had recognized the DPR's statehood. Shortly after, the North Korean Embassy in Moscow confirmed to Sputnik that Pyongyang had recognized the sovereignty of both the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics.

Ukraine has broken off relations with North Korea over Pyongyang's diplomatic recognition of the Donbass republics.

"We consider this decision an attempt by Pyongyang to undermine the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, a gross violation of the Ukrainian constitution, the United Nations Charter and the fundamental norms and principles of international law," the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said in a statement Wednesday.

Stressing that Kiev considers the DPRK's recognition of the Donbass republics "null and void," the Foreign Ministry indicated that "in response to such an unfriendly act, Ukraine announces the severance of diplomatic relations with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea."

The Foreign Ministry added that its political and economic contacts with Pyongyang were limited anyway due to sanctions imposed against the Asian nation.

In his own remarks on the recognition, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba attacked Moscow, alleging that Russia had appealed to North Korea to influence its decision, and that this "speaks more about Moscow's toxicity than Pyongyang's."

"Russia has no more allies left in the world except countries which depend on it financially and politically, and Russia's level of isolation will soon match that of the DPRK. Ukraine will continue to respond as harshly as is possible to encroachments on its sovereignty and territorial integrity," Kuleba said.

The foreign minister did not elaborate on North Korea's purported "dependence" on Moscow. China is known to be Pyongyang's largest trade partner, and the DPRK maintains a strictly independent, non-bloc foreign policy, to the point where it has refused to join most major Western-dominated international institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization.

Ukraine established diplomatic relations with North Korea in January 1992, a few weeks after the collapse of the Soviet Union. At the beginning of the Ukraine crisis in 2014, ties between the two nations soured after Pyongyang recognized Crimea's reunification with Russia. In October 2014, North Korea issued a new political atlas of the world marking the peninsula as Russian territory.

In 2017, Kiev was caught in an international scandal after US intelligence reported on by the New York Times implicated Ukrainian defense enterprises including the once legendary Soviet-era Yuzhmash and Yuzhnoye design bureaus in the sale of advanced rocket engine technology to Pyongyang. This tech was later said to have been used by the DPRK to develop a long-range nuclear-capable missile that can strike the continental United States. Kiev adamantly denied the claims at the time. However, in 2018, Dmitry Kiku, a member of a United Nations team of experts on North Korea sanctions, said that Kiev had "confirmed" to the UN "that North Korean rocket engines most likely contain Ukrainian-made elements."

Ukraine became the eighth member of the United Nations member with no relations with the DPRK, joining Argentina, Botswana, Jordan, Iraq, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates and Chile.