Russian President Vladimir Putin has landed in North Korea for a rare visit that signals the two countries’ deepening alignment and Moscow’s need to source weapons from Pyongyang to sustain its war on Ukraine.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un personally greeted Putin at the plane ramp as he arrived in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang in the early hours of Wednesday morning local time, according to Russian state media TASS.
State media RIA reported that the two leaders paused and talked animatedly with each other for several minutes before reaching their motorcades.
The streets of Pyongyang were decked out with Russian flags and posters of Putin ahead of his first visit to the country since 2000. This week’s visit is a rare overseas trip for Putin since he launched the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and a key moment for Kim, who has not hosted another world leader in his politically isolated country since the Covid-19 pandemic.
Putin’s visit will be closely watched across the world and is expected to cement further the burgeoning partnership between the two powers that is founded on their shared animosity toward the West and driven by Moscow’s need for munitions for its war in Ukraine.
Following his visit to North Korea, Putin is scheduled to travel to Hanoi in a display of Communist-governed Vietnam’s ties to Russia that is likely to rankle the United States.
Putin’s trip to North Korea will have a “very eventful” agenda, his aide Yuri Ushakov said during a press conference Monday. Both leaders plan to sign a new strategic partnership, Ushakov said.
Ushakov insisted the agreement is not provocative or aimed against other countries, but is meant to ensure greater stability in northeast Asia. He said the new agreement will replace documents signed between Moscow and Pyongyang in 1961, 2000 and 2001.
Satellite imagery from Planet Labs and Maxar Technologies showed preparations for a large parade in Pyongyang’s central square. One image was of a grandstand being constructed on the eastern side of Kim Il Sung Square, the site where all major parades in North Korea are held. In an earlier image, taken on June 5, North Koreans can be seen practicing marching formations.
US national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters Monday the Biden administration wasn’t “concerned about the trip” itself, but added, “What we are concerned about is the deepening relationship between these two countries.”
The US, South Korea and other countries have accused North Korea of providing substantial military aid to Russia’s war effort in recent months, while observers have raised concerns that Moscow may be violating international sanctions to aid Pyongyang’s development of its nascent military satellite program. Both countries have denied North Korean arms exports.
Putin’s trip reciprocates one Kim made last September, when the North Korean leader traveled in his armored train to Russia’s far eastern region, for a visit that included stops at a factory that produces fighter jets and a rocket-launch facility.
It also comes as tensions remain high on the Korean peninsula amid heightened international concern about the North Korean leader’s intentions as he ramped up bellicose language and scrapped a longstanding policy of seeking peaceful reunification with South Korea.
South Korea fired warning shots on Tuesday after North Korean soldiers working in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas briefly crossed into the South, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, the second incident of its kind in the last two weeks.
