This Tuesday, Vladimir Putin will embark on his first official trip to North Korea in 24 years. The Russian president will make a two-day visit, on June 18 and 19, in which he will show his gratitude to the North Korean supreme leader, Kim Jong-un, for the millions of projectiles that the Asian dictatorship has provided to Moscow in its offensive against Ukraine in exchange for breaking its international isolation.
South Korea estimates that its northern rival has secretly sent nearly five million projectiles to Russia. South Korean Defense Minister Shin Wonsik stated in an interview published by Bloomberg last week that his indications are that Kim will further strengthen his support for the Kremlin. In addition to the old Soviet North Korean ammunition with which the Russian army has managed to compensate for its shortage, Pyongyang has also supplied dozens of ballistic missiles, according to Seoul.
The UN has maintained an arms embargo on North Korea for two decades, preventing the Asian regime from exporting and importing weapons due to its nuclear program. Russia, a member of the UN Security Council, is one of the countries that should abide by international law. However, United Nations experts have identified the use of North Korean weapons by the Russian Armed Forces. For example, the UN identified the remains of a Hwasong-11 ballistic missile that hit the Ukrainian region of Kherson in January.
“This will be the second visit of the Russian head of state to Pyongyang in the entire history of relations between our countries. The program – of Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un – will be very intense,” the advisor to the Russian president Yuri Ushakov told the Tass agency.
Kim met with Putin in the far east of Russia in September 2023 — the Asian dictator only travels by train, never by plane — and this will be the first time Putin has set foot in the North Korean capital since 2000. The Russian leader, in That moment in office after the surprise resignation of his predecessor and great supporter, Boris Yeltsin, he met with the father and predecessor of the current North Korean president, Kim Jong-il.
The Russian delegation will include the Ministers of Defense, Andrei Belousov, and Foreign Ministers, Sergei Lavrov, and the trip will continue later with another official visit to Vietnam.
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The two leaders will address greater military collaboration. Putin has paved the way for this before Russian public opinion by accusing the United States of strengthening its military alliances in Asia through the Aukus – with the United Kingdom and Australia – and South Korea and Japan.
“It is possible to sign a strategic partnership agreement, the document is under discussion, security issues will have to be taken into account,” said Ushakov.
If the North Korean family saga dates back to 1948 with the rise to power of Kim Jong-Un’s grandfather, Kim Il-sung, in Russia the political regeneration It also passes through the family. In early May, Putin elevated Dmitri Patrushev, son of one of his closest collaborators, the powerful former head of the Federal Security Service (FSB, the former KGB), Nikolai Patrushev, to deputy prime minister; and this Tuesday he appointed the daughter of a late cousin of his, the businesswoman Anna Tsiviliova, as deputy minister of defense.
Tsiviliova’s husband, Sergei Tsiviliov, was also chosen by Putin in May as the new Energy Minister of the Russian Federation. Putin’s cousin, who until now headed the social volunteering platform Defenders of the Homelandwill be in charge of social assistance and housing provision for veterans of the invasion of Ukraine in his new position.
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