Russian President Vladimir V. Putin will visit North Korea this week to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for the second time in nine months, as the two countries deepen military ties to support Putin’s war with North Korean weapons. Ukrainian war.
Putin last visited North Korea in 2000, when he became the first Russian or Soviet leader to visit the country. This week’s trip, which began on Tuesday, underscores North Korea’s growing strategic importance to Putin, particularly its ability to provide much-needed conventional weapons for the war in Ukraine.
In September last year, Kim Jong-un met with Putin in the Russian Far East, ushering in a new era of relations between the two countries.
It is a rare moment for Kim Jong Un, whose country is considered a pariah in the West but is sought after as an ally. For Russia, it’s about strengthening ties with a country that provides much-needed ammunition for its war in Ukraine.
The two countries announced the two-day visit on Monday. “At the invitation of North Korean State Councilor Kim Jong Un, Vladimir Putin will pay a goodwill state visit to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on June 18-19,” the Kremlin said.
Days before Putin arrived in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, the Kremlin vowed to strengthen cooperation with North Korea “in all areas.”
Pyongyang and Moscow were Cold War allies, but relations cooled after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But in the past few years, the two countries have grown closer again over a shared hostility to the United States, Russia’s war in Ukraine and North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.
As the war in Ukraine drags on, Russia is in dire need of conventional weapons, especially artillery shells. North Korea has a lot to offer. In return, Kim Jong Un hopes to upgrade his weapons systems, while Russia shares advanced military technology and other assistance.
U.S. and South Korean officials say North Korea has sent the equivalent of thousands of shipping containers of ammunition to Russia since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. They say Moscow has sent thousands of containers filled with economic and other aid in return.
In the weeks leading up to Putin’s visit, Kim Jong Un showed off what he could offer Putin. During a tour of arms factories last month, he praised them for increasing production and showed off warehouses filled with short-range ballistic missiles – similar to the North Korean missiles that Washington says Russia fired into Ukraine.
Moscow and Pyongyang both deny the arms trade, which is prohibited by U.N. sanctions. But at last week’s G7 summit in Italy, G7 leaders “condemned in the strongest terms the growing military cooperation between the two countries,” including Pyongyang’s export of ballistic missiles and Russia’s use of ballistic missiles against Ukraine.
South Korea’s national security adviser Jang Ho-jin told Yonhap News TV over the weekend that “President Putin’s trip means that Russia is in urgent need” of North Korean weapons due to the war in Ukraine. “The North Koreans will try to get as much as possible because the situation looks favorable to them.”
Mr Chang said South Korea had warned Moscow before Putin’s trip that it “should not cross certain lines”. He did not elaborate. But some analysts in South Korea speculate that during Putin’s visit, North Korea may seek Russian help to improve its nuclear weapons capabilities and try to revive its Cold War-era military alliance with Moscow.
Things were looking grim for Kim Jong Un, until the war in Ukraine created an opportunity for him.
The country’s economy has been battered by years of sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council to halt its nuclear weapons program. Attempts to lift sanctions failed when direct diplomacy between Kim and President Donald J. Trump ended in 2019 without a deal.
Kim Jong-un’s answer is to intensify his nuclear weapons program while envisioning a “new Cold War” in which North Korea hopes to increase its strategic value to China and Russia in Northeast Asia while the United States, Japan and South Korea expand their nuclear weapons. .
North Korea is one of the few countries to openly support Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. In return, Putin last year invited Kim to visit the Vostok Cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East and said Russia could help North Korea launch satellites. Kim Jong Un wants satellites to better monitor his military targets but has encountered difficulties getting them into orbit.
During his visit to Russia last year, Kim visited sensitive Russian space and military facilities, and at one point toasted with Putin in celebration of their “holy struggle” against the “evil forces” of the West.
A U.N. agreement bars Russia from supplying military equipment to North Korea, but the decision to welcome Kim to high-tech facilities that make rockets and fighter jets underscores Russia’s ability to provide technology that North Korea has long coveted.
Faced with international pressure over the invasion of Ukraine, Putin has strengthened ties with U.S. adversaries around the world, including Iran, North Korea and Syria, creating challenges for Washington beyond Europe.
Closer cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow has security implications for the United States and its allies. Defense experts say North Korea’s use of missiles on the battlefield in Ukraine could provide North Korea with valuable data on how it can counter Western missile defense systems.
The U.S. State Department said in a statement on Monday: “The deepening of military cooperation between Russia and North Korea is a trend that should be of great concern to any country interested in maintaining peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, maintaining the global nuclear non-proliferation regime, and supporting nuclear proliferation on the Korean Peninsula. .
On Monday, Putin continued to reshuffle the top ranks of the military in Moscow, signing an order to remove four deputy defense ministers who served for many years under former Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. He also issued an order to appoint four new people with no military background as deputy ministers of defense.
Former Deputy Finance Minister Leonid Gorin became First Deputy Minister of Defense as Putin sought to ensure that the huge defense budget was used effectively. He continued his efforts to reshape the military leadership with more economic expertise. He recently appointed economist Andrei R. Belousov to replace Shoigu.
Pavel Fradkov, a former Kremlin official and son of a former Russian prime minister, was appointed deputy defense minister for construction.
Growing ties between Russia and North Korea have created a gaping hole in international efforts to stifle Kim Jong Un’s ability to earn hard currency through illegal activities.
In March, North Korean television showed Kim Jong Un and his daughter riding in a Russian Aurus limousine given to him by Putin, despite North Korea’s ban on the export of luxury goods to Pyongyang. State-backed hackers from North Korea are increasingly using Russian cryptocurrency exchanges to launder stolen funds. Last month, the White House said Russia was shipping more refined oil to North Korea than was allowed by the Security Council.
South Korean analysts are also concerned that in return for North Korean weapons, Moscow may allow more North Korean immigrants to work in Russia and earn Kim Jong Un much-needed cash.
The Security Council resolution bans the import of such workers from North Korea. But this year, Moscow has made it easier to flout those resolutions by using its veto power on the Security Council to dissolve a U.N. panel of experts responsible for monitoring North Korea’s compliance with international sanctions.
Paul Sonnet Contributing reporting from Berlin, Ivan Necheplenko From Tbilisi, Georgia Edward Wong From Washington.
