North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin are to meet later this month in Moscow.
The Kremlin announcement was made Thursday after North Korea said it tested a new tactical weapon armed with a “powerful warhead.”
The Kremlin did not provide details of the Putin-Kim summit, but said it had planned the meeting for months.
Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump have held two summits as part of an ongoing effort to denuclearize North Korea, but the efforts have stalled.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier U.S. presidential advisor Fiona Hill met in Moscow with her Russian counterpart, Yuri Ushakov. The U.S. State Department said the U.S. special envoy for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, was also in Moscow.
Russia and North Korea have relatively warm relations and Putin has long expressed a willingness to meet with Kim.
The last meeting between the leaders of the two countries occurred in 2011, when Kim’s father, the late Kim Jong Il, met in Siberia with then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.