CNN
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Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit North Korea for a two-day trip starting on Tuesday, the Kremlin said, in his first visit to the country in more than two decades, the latest sign of deepening ties between the two countries that have raised widespread international concern.
It’s a rare overseas trip for Putin since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and a significant moment for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who has not hosted other world leaders in Pyongyang, one of the world’s most politically isolated capitals, since the coronavirus pandemic.
The high-profile visit is expected to further cement growing cooperation between the two countries, which is based on a shared hostility towards the West and driven by the need to support Putin in his ongoing war with Ukraine.
Following his visit to North Korea, Putin is due to begin another two-day trip to Hanoi on Wednesday, a sign of Russia’s ties with Communist Vietnam and likely to infuriate the United States.
Putin’s visit to North Korea will be a “very busy” one, his aide Yuri Ushakov said at a press conference on Monday. The two leaders are expected to sign a new strategic partnership, and the main event of the visit is scheduled for Wednesday, Ushakov said.
Ushakov insisted that the agreement is not provocative or aimed at other countries, but is aimed at ensuring greater stability in Northeast Asia. He said the new agreement would replace documents signed between Moscow and Pyongyang in 1961, 2000 and 2001.
“The parties are still working and the final decision on the signing will be made in the next few hours,” Ushakov said, according to Russian state media RIA.
Satellite images taken by Planet Labs and Maxar Technologies show preparations for a major parade in Pyongyang’s central square. One photo shows grandstands under construction on the east side of Kim Il-sung Square, where all major parades in North Korea are held. An earlier photo, taken on June 5, shows North Koreans practicing their marching formations.
Sputnik/Reuters
President Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un during a visit to Russia’s Vostochny Cosmodrome in September 2023.
US national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Monday that the Biden administration was “not concerned about the visit itself,” but added: “What we are concerned about is the growing relationship between our two countries.”
The United States, South Korea and other countries have accused North Korea of providing Russia with huge amounts of military aid for its war efforts in recent months. Meanwhile, observers have expressed concern that Moscow may be helping North Korea develop a nascent military satellite program in violation of international sanctions. Both countries deny exporting arms to North Korea.
Putin’s visit is in reciprocation to Kim’s visit to Russia’s Far East in an armored train in September last year, when he visited a fighter jet factory and a rocket launch facility.
Tensions are also rising on the Korean peninsula as North Korea’s leader has become increasingly bellicose in rhetoric and abandoned a long-held policy of peaceful unification with South Korea, raising international concerns about his intentions.
South Korea fired warning shots on Tuesday after North Korean soldiers briefly crossed into South Korea in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), the second such incident in the past two weeks, according to the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff.
In a message to Putin last week to mark Russia’s National Day on June 12, Kim Jong Un praised the future of “meaningful relations and close friendship” between the two countries.
“Our people extend their full support and solidarity to the successful activities of the Russian army and people,” Kim said, according to the Rodong Sinmun newspaper.
In an article published in the Rodong Sinmun newspaper early Tuesday local time to coincide with the visit, Putin thanked Pyongyang for its “unwavering support” for Russia’s war in Ukraine and said the two countries were “ready to confront the ambitions of the West.”
He said the two countries are “actively promoting multifaceted cooperative relations” and “developing alternative trade and mutual settlement mechanisms not dominated by the West, jointly opposing illegal unilateral restrictions, and shaping an equal and indivisible security architecture in Eurasia.”
The meeting came just days after a G7 summit in Italy, also attended by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, where Western leaders reaffirmed their enduring support for Ukraine and agreed to use profits from frozen Russian assets to fund $50 billion in loans to the war-torn country.
The meeting also came after a Kiev-sponsored international peace summit attended by more than 100 countries and organizations over the weekend, which aimed to rally support for President Zelenskyy’s peace initiative, which calls for a complete withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukrainian territory.
A day before the meeting, Putin rejected those efforts, laying out his own peace conditions, including a withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from four partially occupied regions and for Kiev to withdraw its application for NATO membership – positions Ukraine and its allies see as unworkable.
Putin’s visit to North Korea is widely seen as an opportunity for him to shore up his support for Kim Jong Un’s war effort, a goal that may become even more urgent as long-delayed U.S. military aid to Ukraine begins.
Last month, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told the US Congress that North Korea’s provision of weapons and missiles and Iranian drones had allowed the Russian military to “stand on its feet”.
South Korea’s Defense Ministry said earlier this year that North Korea shipped about 6,700 containers to Russia between August and February, capable of carrying more than three million 152mm artillery shells or more than 500,000 122mm multiple rocket launchers.
Both Russia and Pyongyang deny any such arms transfers, and a senior North Korean official last month called such claims an “absurd contradiction.”
Asked about concerns that Russia was considering transferring sensitive technology to Pyongyang in exchange for the items, a Kremlin spokesman said last week that the “potential for the development of bilateral relations” between the two countries was “enormous” and that “this should not cause concern to anyone, and no one should or can object.”
Putin last visited North Korea in 2000, his first year as Russian president, where he met with Kim Jong-un’s predecessor and late father, Kim Jong-il.
The Russian leader’s visits to North Korea and Vietnam come as he appears eager to shake off the image of isolation following his widely condemned invasion of Ukraine, bring in like-minded partners and re-establish himself on the global stage.
Last month, Putin paid an official visit to Beijing, where he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and fully expressed their shared opposition to the U.S.-led world order.
Moscow last week hosted foreign ministers from China, Iran, South Africa and Brazil for a meeting of the BRICS, a grouping of major developing countries.
U.S. national security spokesman John Kirby on Monday called Putin’s latest visit a “charm offensive” following his reelection, in which he was elected to a fifth term earlier this year without any real opposition.
Putin’s moves to strengthen ties with North Korea also benefit Kim Jong Un, who has buckled under years of international sanctions over his illegal nuclear weapons program.
A visit by the leaders of the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council would signal to Kim’s domestic audience his global influence and give him a chance to solicit badly needed economic and technological assistance from Moscow.
Russia has previously supported international sanctions and a U.N.-backed investigation into North Korea’s illegal weapons programs, which include testing long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles theoretically capable of reaching the U.S. mainland.
But that balance of power appears to be shifting due to Russia’s growing reliance on North Korea and growing friction with the West: In March, Russia vetoed a UN resolution that would have restored independent monitoring of North Korea’s violations of Security Council sanctions.
Additional reporting by Mariya Knight, Yoonjung Seo, Betsy Klein and Paul P. Murphy
