NK leader Kim sends New Year's message to Putin, calls bilateral ties 'precious common asset'

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has sent a message of greeting to Russian President Vladimir Putin ahead of New Year's Day, calling the two countries' relations a "precious common asset," the North's state media said Saturday. In the message, Kim described this year as a "meaningful" one when the two countries "steadily wrote a great biography of the alliance" through "full mutual support and selfless encouragement," according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). Kim's greeting came after Putin himself sent New Year's message to the North Korean leader on Dec. 18. "I think that today's DPRK-Russia alliance ... is a precious common asset to be carried forward forever not only in the present era but also by posterity generation after generation," Kim said, using the acronym of North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Kim said the North-Russia relations have been further consolidated into the "sincerest alliance of sharing blood, life and death in the same trench," as he referred to the North's troop deployment to Russia to support the war with Ukraine. "N