North Korea has recognised two Russian-backed breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine as independent states, according to Reuters and Al Jazeera.
The move makes North Korea only the third country after Russia and Syria to recognise the two breakaway entities, the Donetsk (DPR) and Luhansk People's Republics (LPR), in Ukraine's Donbas region.
North Korea's official KCNA confirmed on Thursday the country's foreign minister Choe Son Hui sent letters to her counterparts in both territories on Wednesday, recognising their independence.
"In the letters, she ... expressed the will to develop the state-to-state relations with those countries in the idea of independence, peace and friendship," KCNA said.
In response, Ukraine immediately severed relations with Pyongyang over the move.
“We consider this decision as an attempt by Pyongyang to undermine the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine,” Ukraine’s foreign ministry said in a statement on its website.
In a post on the Telegram channel, DPR leader Denis Pushilin said he hoped for "fruitful cooperation" and increased trade with North Korea, an isolated, nuclear-armed state more than 4,000 miles (6,500 km) away.
The DPR's Embassy in Moscow posted a photo on its Telegram channel of a ceremony in which North Korea's ambassador to Moscow, Sin Hong-chol, handed a certificate of recognition to DPR envoy Olga Makeyeva.
Russia, which has backed the regions since 2014, recognised them on the eve of its war in Ukraine in a move condemned by Kyiv and the West as illegal.
Russia justified its decision to launch the war, which it calls a "special military operation", by saying it was protecting Russian speakers who live there from "genocide".
Kyiv and the West have dismissed these assertions as a pretext for waging war and seizing swathes of Ukraine's territory.
North Korea previously expressed support for Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014.
