Russia|Closer cooperation between Russia and North Korea may reduce South Korea’s arms deliveries to Ukraine.
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Putin will visit North Korea and then travel to Vietnam.
North Korea is estimated to supply weapons to Russia.
In return, Russia supplies North Korea with money, fuel and technology.
Russia’s technology export to North Korea worries South Korea.
Russian president Vladimir Putin will visit North Korea on Tuesday and Wednesday, news agencies say. From North Korea, Putin travels to Vietnam.
North Korea and its autocratic leader Kim Jong-un are valuable to Putin right now, even though North Korea’s economic situation is dire, and international sanctions and the corona pandemic have made it even worse.
Putin has hardly traveled abroad since the start of the war of aggression in Ukraine, and especially not since the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for him in March of last year.
“There aren’t many countries that would welcome Putin anymore,” sums up the professor at Seoul’s Ewha University Leif-Eric Easley for Reuters.
Putin has visited North Korea only once before, in 2000.
Putin and Kim called each other “unscathed brothers in arms” and presented each other with rifles when they met last September in Russia. In February, Putin sent Kim a Russian limousine.
However, the true nature of the friendship is questionable. There is probably a lot of cold political realism involved.
Russia needs weapons from North Korea, and North Korea needs money, fuel and high-level technology from Russia. North Korea’s latest satellite launch is believed to have been made possible by Russian technology.
North Korea, on the other hand, has delivered approximately 11,000 containers of weapons and ammunition to Russia since the meeting in September, according to the estimate of the American authorities, says The Economist magazine.
The deliveries have allegedly included, among other things, Hwasong-11 ballistic missiles, although North Korea has denied this.
As a business manager Russia is causing gray hairs in the West.
Russia’s technology export to North Korea worries South Korea in particular. The closer cooperation between Russia and North Korea may also reduce South Korea’s arms deliveries to Ukraine.
South Korea has a rich arms and defense industry, and the country is a big supporter of Ukraine: the presidents of South Korea and Ukraine last spoke on the phone in May.
However, South Korea does not want to unnecessarily provoke Russia and North Korea, as it does not want its neighbor’s nuclear weapons program to advance.
North Korea is estimated to have asked Russia for nuclear weapons plans and possibly technology related to ballistic missiles, submarines or satellites in exchange for arms deliveries.
Russian and North Korea’s cooperation reduces the credibility of international organizations at the same time, which Russia likes.
Diplomatic representatives of the United States and South Korea warned on Friday that the intensifying military cooperation between Russia and North Korea is against the resolutions of the UN Security Council.
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