The Russian national holiday, which celebrates the 1990 declaration of the country's sovereignty during the Soviet era, is observed annually on June 12.
In the message reportedly delivered the previous day by North Korean Ambassador to Russia Sin Hong-chol, Kim called Putin his "dearest comrade" and praised the bilateral ties between the two countries as a "genuine relationship between comrades-in-arms and between allies," according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency.
The friendship between Pyongyang and Moscow has been "further cemented" through the comradeship "the two countries have forged at the cost of their blood," Kim was quoted as saying. He also added his country would "always stand with" Moscow.
After several months of silence, Pyongyang earlier this year admitted for the first time that it had dispatched troops to Russia to support its prolonged war in Ukraine, following the two countries' signing of a mutual defense treaty during Putin's visit to Pyongyang in June last year. The message was delivered just a week ahead of the first anniversary of the treaty.
Meanwhile, railway services linking Pyongyang to Moscow and Khabarovsk, which were suspended due to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, are scheduled to resume next week, fueling speculation that Kim could visit the Kremlin sometime later this year.
Kim traveled by train to meet Putin in Vladivostok in 2019 and again to Russia's main spaceport Vostochny Cosmodrome in 2023, although he does not appear to have inherited his father's morbid fear of flying.
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