MOSCOW (AP) — Russia on Thursday offered sympathy to North Korea amid the Sony hacking scandal, saying the movie that sparked the dispute was so scandalous that Pyongyang's anger was "quite understandable."

Washington failed to offer any proof to back its claims of Pyongyang's involvement in the hacking, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesmanAlexander Lukashevich said at a briefing, adding that the U.S. threats of retaliation were "counterproductive."

FILE - In this Dec. 22, 2014, file photo, a South Korean army soldier walks near a TV screen showing an advertisement of Sony Picture's "The Interview," at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea. It seems everyone has a theory about who really hacked Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. Despite President Barack Obama’s conclusion that North Korea was the culprit, the Internet’s newest game of whodunit continues. Top theories include disgruntled Sony insiders, hired hackers, other foreign governments or Internet hooligans. Even some experts are undecided, with questions about why the communist state would steal and leak gigabytes of data, email threats to some Sony employees and their families then threaten moviegoers who planned to watch “The Interview” on Christmas. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, File)

The U.S. has blamed Pyongyang for the recent cyberattack on Sony Pictures, which produced "The Interview," a comedy depicting the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Pyongyang has denied a role in the hacking, but also praised it as a "righteous deed."

Sony initially decided not to release the film because of threats against U.S. cinemas, but released the movie online Wednesday.

Russia's ties with the communist North soured after the 1991 Soviet collapse, but have improved under President Vladimir Putin's watch. Moscow has taken part in international efforts to help mediate the standoff over Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs, although its diplomatic efforts have had little visible effect.

Last week, the Kremlin said that it had invited Kim to Moscow in May to attend festivities marking the 70th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany.

Commenting on the Sony hack scandal, Lukashevich said that "the concept of the movie is so aggressive and scandalous, that the reaction of the North Korean side, and not just it, is quite understandable."

He went on to say that Pyongyang had offered to conduct a joint investigation into the incident, adding that the proposal could help ease tensions and reflected a "sincere desire of the North Korean side to study the issue in detail."

"We perceive the U.S. threats to take revenge and calls on other nations to condemn the Democratic People's Republic of Korea as absolutely counterproductive and dangerous, as they only would add tensions to the already difficult situation on the Korean Peninsula and could lead to further escalation of conflict," Lukashevich said.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Ukraine's pursuit of NATO membership posed a danger to European security and that the West was using Kiev's bid to join the Atlantic alliance as a way to fuel confrontation between Russia and Ukraine.

The Kiev parliament's renunciation of Ukraine's neutral status this week as a step toward joining NATO has outraged Moscow and deepened the worst confrontation between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War.

Lavrov is the latest Russian official to speak out against the Kiev's bid in recent days, and who have made clear Russia would see the NATO membership of such a strategic former Soviet republic with a long common border as a direct military threat.

"There are a few Western countries that want to maintain the crisis in Ukraine and to maintain and boost the confrontation between Ukraine and Russia, including through provocative efforts toward membership in the Atlantic alliance," he said.

"The very idea of Ukraine's efforts to join NATO are dangerous, not only for Ukrainian people, because there is no unity over that issue, it is dangerous for European security," he said, speaking on state television.

NATO boosted its military presence in eastern Europe this year, saying it has evidence Russia orchestrated and armed a pro-Russian rebellion in eastern Ukraine that followed the overthrow of a Kremlin-backed president in Kiev.

Moscow denies supporting the rebellion, and says it is currently trying, along with Kiev and the rebels, to find a political solution to the crisis in eastern Ukraine.

(Reporting by Thomas Grove; Editing by Dmitry Zhdannikov and Raissa Kasolowsky)

Reuters Videos
Obama addresses U.S. troops

KANEOHE BAY, Hawaii (AP) — President Barack Obama marked the end of more than a decade of combat in Afghanistan by paying tribute to America's military, telling troops on Christmas Day that their sacrifices have allowed for a more peaceful, prosperous world to emerge out of the ashes of 9/11.

At an oceanfront Marine Corps base in Hawaii, Obama told troops that while tough challenges remain for the U.S. military in hotspots like Iraq and West Africa, the world as a whole is better off because American troops put country first and served with distinction. He said Americans and their president could not be more thankful.

"Because of the extraordinary service of the men and women in the American armed forces, Afghanistan has a chance to rebuild its own country," Obama said to applause from Marines and their families. "We are safer. It's not going to be a source of terrorist attacks again."

Thirteen years and $1 trillion later, the U.S. is preparing to pull the vast majority of its combat troops out of Afghanistan by year's end, as the U.S. and its partners seek to turn the page on a bloody chapter that started the day that al-Qaida militants struck American soil on Sept. 11, 2011. From a peak 140,000 troops in 2010, the U.S. and NATO plan to leave just 13,500 behind for training and battlefield support.

Although there are reasons for cautious optimism, including a new Afghan president whose seriousness of effort has inspired U.S. confidence, the broader picture still looks glim.

The U.S. is shifting to a supporting role after the bloodiest year in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. Civilian casualties this year are on track to hit 10,000, and some 5,000 Afghan forces were also killed in 2014, a figure that has escalated as the country took on a greater role in its own security. Insurgents have seized territory across the country, raising fears that Islamic militants will successfully exploit the security vacuum formed as the U.S. pulls out.

View gallery

U.S. President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama (R) greet U.S. military personnel at Marin …

Roughly 2,200 U.S. troops were killed in Afghanistan over the last 13 years in a war that cost the U.S. $1 trillion, plus another $100 billion for reconstruction. A celebratory cheer of "hooah" rang out from the hundreds of troops here when Obama affirmed that the combat mission was finally ending.

"We still have some very difficult missions around the world — including in Iraq," Obama said. But, he added, "the world is better, it's safer, it's more peaceful, it's more prosperous and our homeland protected because of you."

On the U.S. mainland and across the globe, other prominent leaders were fanning out, echoing the president's message with their own Christmas visits and phone calls to American troops.

Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, visited Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, to spend time with wounded troops and their families and express gratitude for their service. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel called military members on deployment, the Pentagon said, including those in Afghanistan and others assigned to U.S. Central Command, which is running the U.S. mission to fight the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

Republican Sen. John McCain was spending Christmas in Kabul, Afghanistan, where the former Navy pilot met Thursday with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and his chief executive officer, Abdullah Abdullah. A chief critic of Obama's foreign policy, McCain is set to lead the Senate Armed Services Committee next year.

___

Reach Josh Lederman on Twitter at http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP

A barbed wire fence decorated with South Korean national flags is pictured near the demilitarized zone which separates North and South Korea in Paju October 31, 2014. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan, the United States and South Korea are close to reaching a deal on sharing and safeguarding sensitive information on North Korea's missile and nuclear programs, Japan's Defence Ministry said on Friday.

As Japan lies well within the range of North Korea's mid-range missiles, acquiring military intelligence on North Korea in a timely manner is vital for its security.

"Ever since defense ministers of Japan, the United States and South Korea agreed on the importance of information sharing in May, discussion has taken place at various levels," a Japanese Defence Ministry official told a media briefing.

"And now we are in the final stages toward signing."

Under the framework, South Korea would pass relevant information to the United States, with which Seoul already has a legally-binding pact to share and safeguard intelligence called General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), and then the U.S. would pass the information onto Japan.

It would also work the other way around as the United States has signed a GSOMIA with Japan as well.

Some South Koreans have voiced concerns about signing a security pact with Japan, a one-time colonial ruler. Besides Japan's annexation of Korean peninsula that ended in 1945, bilateral ties have been plagued by a prolonged territorial dispute over a group of tiny islets.

(Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)