By Hyunsu Yim and Joyce Lee SEOUL (Reuters) -North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met Russia's top presidential security adviser Sergei Shoigu in Pyongyang on Tuesday and discussed a "special military operation" in the Kursk region bordering Ukraine,

Thousands of North Korean laborers are already toiling in Russia. A new contingent is headed to the region where North Korean troops fought Ukraine.

Russian state news agency RIA Novosti says North Korea will send thousands of military construction workers and deminers to Russia

The Kremlin said on Tuesday that U.S. President Donald Trump was right to assert that it had been a big mistake to expel Russia from the Group of Eight in 2014, but that the G7 was no longer significant for Russia and looked "rather useless" now.

Ahead of the G7 Summit in Alberta, Canada, President Trump told reporters that it was a "big mistake" for Russia to have been kicked out of the then-G8, which took place after Russia invaded Crimea. "[Putin] doesn't even speak to the people that threw him out.

President Trump, in a bilateral meeting with Canadian PM Mark Carney for the G7 summit, called it a "mistake" for Russia to have been removed from the G8 in 2014 for annexing Crimea.