Kim Jong Un Meets Putin in Russia Amid US Arms Deal Concerns
North Korea’s Kim Jong Un was in Russia on a rare overseas visit Tuesday ahead of a meeting with President Vladimir Putin, sparking warnings from Washington over a potential arms deal for Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
Wearing a black suit and flanked by uniformed defense officials, North Korean state media images showed Kim without a smile waving from the vestibule of his heavily armored, green-and-gold-painted private train as it departed the Pyongyang station on Sunday evening.
The Russian state news agency Ria Novosti confirmed that Kim’s train had crossed the frontier into the Primorsky region, with images depicting a dark green train pulled by a Russian Railways locomotive.
Kim and Putin will meet in the Far East later this week, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov and Ria Novosti. The two may convene at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, the city in the Far East closest to the North Korea-Russia border.
The forum will conclude on Wednesday. North Korea desires sophisticated satellite and nuclear-powered submarine technology in exchange for artillery shells and antitank missiles, according to experts.
Kim, accompanied by top North Korean military officials, including officials in charge of weapons production and space technology, “left here by train on Sunday afternoon to visit the Russian Federation,” according to the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). KCNA images showed Kim receiving a “warm send-off” complete with red carpet and honor guard at Pyongyang station at approximately 9:38 a.m. (18:38 GMT).
Washington asserts that Kim’s unwavering support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine has included the provision of projectiles and missiles. Putin celebrated Pyongyang’s “firm support for special military operations against Ukraine” in July.
However, both Moscow and Pyongyang have denied that North Korea has or will supply arms to Russia, which has depleted its enormous stockpiles of munitions fighting in Ukraine since the beginning of the year.
Kim has not left the North since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. His last formal international trip was in 2019 to meet Putin in Russia.
Moscow, a historical ally of Pyongyang, was a crucial backer of the isolated nation for decades, and their connections date back to North Korea’s founding 75 years ago.
“Given his interest in exploiting ‘new Cold War’ geopolitics and his preference for traveling by train for personal security, it is unsurprising that Kim chose Russia as his first post-pandemic destination,” said a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.
“North Korea has the crude ammunition that Putin needs for his illegal war in Ukraine, while Russia has the submarine, ballistic, and satellite technologies that could help Pyongyang leapfrog the economic sanctions-related engineering challenges it faces,” he said.
Even if an arms deal does result from the Putin-Kim summit, it is unlikely that either party will disclose all the details due to the “serious international legal violations involved,” he added.
The White House recently warned Pyongyang that it would pay a price if it supplied weapons to Moscow. The United States depicted Putin as desperate for a meeting with Kim on Monday.
“Having to travel the length of his own country to meet with an international pariah to ask for assistance in a war he expected to win in the first month, I would characterize it as him begging for help,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.
Washington has stated that Russia could use North Korean weapons to attack Ukrainian food supplies and heating infrastructure as winter approaches in an attempt to “conquer territory belonging to another sovereign nation.”
Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert at Kookmin University in Seoul, told AFP that a Putin-Kim summit was part of Moscow’s “gentle diplomatic blackmail” of Seoul, as Russia did not want Seoul to supply weapons to Kyiv.
Seoul is a significant exporter of arms and has sold tanks to Ukraine’s ally Poland, but its longstanding domestic policy prohibits it from selling arms to parties engaged in active conflicts.
“The greatest concern of the Russian government right now is the potential shipment of South Korean ammunition to Ukraine, and not just one shipment, but multiple shipments,” Lankov said.
Kim Jong Un Meets Putin in Russia Amid US Arms Deal Concerns
