Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit North Korea tomorrow and Wednesday, the Kremlin reported, in a rare trip which underlines Moscow’s burgeoning partnership with the nuclear country.
The North Korean leader Kim Jong Un extended an invitation to Putin during a visit to the Russian Far East in September. Putin last visited Pyongyang in July 2000.
“At the invitation of DPRK Chairman of State Affairs Kim Jong Un, Vladimir Putin will pay a friendly state visit to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on June 18 and 19,” declared the Kremlin.
Next, Putin will visit Vietnam on June 19 and 20, according to the Kremlin. Both visits were planned, although the dates had not been previously announced.
Russia has made efforts to publicize the rebirth of its relationship with North Korea since the start of the war in Ukraine, which sparked alarm among the United States and its allies in Europe and Asia.
According to Washington, North Korea supplied weapons to Russia to help it fight in Ukraine, although Pyongyang denied it repeatedly.
For Putin, who says Russia is engaged in an existential battle with the West over Ukraine, courting Kim allows him to put Washington on the spot. and its Asian allies, according to the interpretation of the Reuters news agency.
United Nations observers concluded that at least one ballistic missile fired from Russia at a Ukrainian city in January it was manufactured in North Korea.
officials of Ukraine They claim that they counted about 50 missiles of this type delivered to Russia by North Korea.
After the DPRKPutin will visit Vietnam from Wednesday to Thursday, he added.
The top leader of the DPRKKim Jong Un, carried out an official visit to Russia at the invitation of Putin in September 2023, after which he invited Putin to pay a visit to his country.
Russia It was the first country visited by Kim after the Covid-19 pandemic, during which the DPRK’s borders were closed.
The USAwhich improved relations with Hanoi last year and is Vietnam’s main trading partner, reacted harshly.
“No country should give Putin a platform to promote its war of aggression and allow it to normalize its atrocities,” a spokesman for the US embassy in Hanoi told Reuters when asked about the impact of the visit on ties with the United States.
“If he can travel freely, that could normalize Russia’s flagrant violations of international law,” the spokesperson added, referring to the invasion of Ukraine that Putin launched in February 2022.
“I was very happy when I found out that Mr. Putin He will come to Vietnam because he is very talented and truly a world leader. “I admire him very much,” said Tran Xuan Cuong, a 57-year-old Hanoi resident, speaking in front of a statue of Lenin in the center of the Vietnamese capital.
