MOSCOW, Russia (AFP)— Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered condolences to North Korean counterpart Kim Jong Un over devastating floods that caused untold casualties and damaged thousands of homes, the Kremlin said on Saturday.

North Korea said this week it had seen a record downpour on July 27 which killed an unspecified number of people, flooded dwellings and submerged swathes of farmland in the north near China.

“I ask you to convey words of sympathy and support to all those who lost their loved ones as a result of the storm,” Putin said in a telegram to Kim.

“You can always count on our help and support.”

North Korea and Russia have been allies since the North’s founding after World War II and have drawn even closer since Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Media in South Korea, which has offered urgent support to the victims, said this week the toll of dead and missing could be as high as 1,500.

Kim lashed out at the reports, dismissing them as a “smear campaign to bring disgrace upon us and tarnish” the North’s image.

Natural disasters tend to have a greater impact on the isolated and impoverished country due to its weak infrastructure, while deforestation has left it vulnerable to flooding.