North Korean leader Kim Jong Un urged the country’s military in a speech last week to improve its war-fighting capabilities, state media KCNA said on Monday, after Pyongyang sent thousands of troops to Russia.

Kim delivered the speech at a conference of battalion commanders and political instructors held in Pyongyang on Friday, where he called for building political and military strength and combat efficiency to ensure the armed forces can cope with a war.

Threats from the United States and its allies, including South Korea, and their military confrontation with North Korea have pushed tensions to “the worst phase in history,” he said, calling the Korean Peninsula “the largest hotspot in the world ”.

“He fervently called on all participants to make every effort to achieve substantial and fundamental improvements in enhancing their capabilities for fighting an actual war,” KCNA said.

The report came amid international criticism of the rapidly developing military cooperation between North Korea and Russia.

Washington, Seoul and Kiev have said more than 10,000 North Korean soldiers are in Russia to support the war against Ukraine, and some of them are involved in fighting in Kursk, near the border with Ukraine.

KCNA said a workshop was held for military officers this weekend as part of the conference, which aimed to strengthen the battalions, increase their combat efficiency and “complete war preparations as required by the prevailing situation and modern warfare. ”

In a separate report, KCNA said a Russian delegation led by Alexander Kozlov, Minister of National Resources and Ecology, arrived in Pyongyang on Sunday for trade and economy talks.

Last week, Kim led a test of attack drones and ordered their mass production, citing increasing competition for adopting such weapons around the world.

President Joe Biden, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba condemned North Korea and Russia’s decision to “dangerously expand” the war in Ukraine as they held a summit on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Peru.

The Biden administration has allowed Ukraine to use American-made weapons to strike deep inside Russia, sources told NBC News. This marked a significant policy reversal and response to Russia’s deployment of North Korean ground forces.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that North Korean troops had suffered casualties in battle with his country’s armed forces, and that the first fighting between them “opens a new page in instability.”