"The DPRK is already receiving Russian military equipment and training. Now we have reason to believe that Moscow intends to share advanced space and satellite technology with Pyongyang," Blinken told a news conference in Seoul, using the North's official name.

Repeating an assertion recently made by the US ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Blinken said that the United States also believed that Russia "may be close" to formally accepting North Korea's status as a nuclear power.

The assertion came as North Korea test-fired a missile just as Blinken was visiting the US ally.