The Russian president’s turning to the hermit dictator has been interpreted as a gesture of desperation. There are still risks involved in deepening the cooperation between the two outcasts.
Few the encounter is at the same time subtly secretive and purposefully spectacular. President of Russia Vladimir Putin and the leader of North Korea Kim Jong-un met on Wednesday at a space center in the Russian Far East.
Kim arrived in Russia with his splendid armored train. Just hours before the meeting, North Korea conducted new missile tests.
The visit abroad is Kim’s first since 2019 and the corona pandemic. It shows the strategic importance of relations between North Korea and Russia. At least that’s what Kim himself said, according to the North Korean state news agency KCNA, reported Reuters.
But what does the meeting between the two ostracized leaders of the West really mean?
All right at least is that both Putin and Kim have huge needs – and few allies. Putin’s friends have dwindled since he launched a war of aggression in Ukraine in 2022.
So he has had to turn to an isolated outcast dictatorship.
It is important for both Putin and Kim to show the international audience that they still have international friends in the common fight against the West. At the same time, both strive for practical acquisitions.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un boarded his armored train after meeting with the Russian president.
Putin, who lost huge amounts of his military equipment in Ukraine, is believed to be looking at ammunition and Soviet-era missiles lying in North Korea’s warehouses. Kim, on the other hand, is thought to need oil, food and medicine.
Meeting place also hints at North Korea’s above-ground aspirations.
Completed in 2016, the Vostochny Cosmodrome is Russia’s most important launcher launch center on its own soil. With the help of the new space center, Putin wanted to reduce Russia’s dependence on the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
However, according to the AFP news agency, the construction project, which was overshadowed by delays and accusations of corruption, became a symbol of the problems in the Russian space sector.
It does not mean that Russia’s space expertise is not enough to interest North Korea, which has had significant problems in developing its own intelligence satellites. North Korea has repeatedly failed to launch its first military spy satellite into orbit.
According to Reuters, reporters asked Putin if Russia would help Kim build satellites.
“That’s why we came here,” the Russian president replied. “The leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea shows great interest in rocket technology.”
Kim Jong-un is said to have visited the Vostochny cosmodrome.
Putin and Kim discussed, among other things, the possibility of sending a North Korean cosmonaut into space. Discussions were most obviously also about other issues related to the armed forces. The fact that the defense ministers of both countries participated in the meeting of the delegations speaks of the centrality of war topics.
Putin’s and Kim’s meeting was prepared so that neither leader would appear too desperate, he estimated British channel Sky News. The meeting place was near the border of the countries. The timing coincided with the economic forum in Vladivostok, when Putin would have traveled to the eastern edge of his country anyway.
Despite trying hard, many experts interpreted turning to Kim as a sign of Putin’s desperation and weakness.
The fraternization of two outcasts is still not harmless.
Financial news office Bloomberg estimates, that the deepening of the relationship between Putin and Kim threatens stability in both Europe and Asia. At the same time, it causes headaches for both China and the United States.
In Ukraine, ammunition supplied by North Korea would mean more deaths. It remains to be seen how much Putin is willing to give in exchange for old-fashioned war needs.
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