North Korean leader Kim Jong Un arrived in Vladivostok on Saturday where he met Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and inspected a hypersonic aircraft missile system before boarding a warship. Kim’s first official visit abroad since the Covid-19 pandemic has fanned Western fears that Moscow and Pyongyang will defy sanctions and strike an arms deal Moscow is believed to be interested in buying North Korean ammunition to continue fighting in Ukraine while Pyongyang wants Russia’s help to develop its missile programme.
Kim s extended tour of Russia’s far eastern region, which began Tuesday, has leaned heavily martial, including his military-dominated entourage, symbolic exchange of rifles with President Vladimir Putin and tour of a fighter jet factory in engineering hub Komsomolsk-on-Amur.After Putin, Kim Jong Un Meets Russian Defence Minister Inspects MissileKim is visiting Russia as Putin seeks to bolster alliancesAfter meeting Kim on Wednesday at the Vostochny cosmodrome roughly 8,000 kilometres (5,000 miles) from Moscow, Putin talked up the prospect of greater cooperation with North Korea and said there were “possibilities” for military ties.
Moscow North Korean leader Kim Jong Un arrived in Vladivostok on Saturday where he met Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and inspected a hypersonic aircraft missile system before boarding a warship. Kim’s first official visit abroad since the Covid-19 pandemic has fanned Western fears that Moscow and Pyongyang will defy sanctions and strike an arms deal.
Moscow is believed to be interested in buying North Korean ammunition to continue fighting in Ukraine, while Pyongyang wants Russia’s help to develop its missile programme.
Upon arriving in Vladivostok, a large coastal city near the Chinese and North Korean borders, Kim was greeted by Shoigu and an honour guard, state news agency TASS reported At the Knevichi airfield, Shoigu showed Kim “the Kinzhal missile system on the MiG-31I missile carrierTASS said, adding that its “flight and technical capabilities” were outlined to Kim by a top military officiaKim and Shoigu then boarded frigate Marshal Shaposhnikov where the “Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy, Admiral Nikolay Evmenov, spoke about the characteristics of the ship and anti-submarine weapons fourtube torpedo tubes and RBU-6000 rocket launchers
Kim is visiting Russia as Putin seeks to bolster alliances with other world leaders ostracised by Western countriesThe cooperation announced during Kim’s Russia is “quite troubling and would potentially be in violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions”, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reports following the leaders’ summitNorth Korean satellites, he noted, have been used to develop Pyongyang’s ballistic missiles Moscow also mentioned the possibility of helping North Korea to manufacture satellites, a prospect that has alarmed Washington.