North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is in Vladivostok, a port city in southeastern Russia, where he was received on Saturday (16) by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who presented him with a MiG-31 fighter jet and its Kinjal hypersonic missile system, according to the Tass news agency.y.
RFI
Smiling, Kim Jong-un landed at Knevichi airport, about 50 km from the Pacific city of Vladivostok, where he was awaited by Vladimir Putin’s defense minister, Sergei Shoigu. Together they inspected nuclear-capable strategic bombers, hypersonic missiles and warships.
Sergei Shoigu showed the North Korean dictator the Russian Tu-160, Tu-95 and Tu-22M3 bombers – which are capable of carrying nuclear weapons and form the backbone of the Kremlin’s air strike force. “It can go from Moscow to Japan and back,” the minister said of one of these devices.
The United States and South Korea fear that the strengthening of ties between Moscow and Pyongyang will help Russia arm itself for the war in Ukraine.
In this city in the Russian Far East, close to the borders of China and North Korea, Kim Jong-un also boarded the Russian warship Marshal Shaposhnikov, where he was received by the frigate’s commander. He was also due to attend a demonstration by the Russian navy.
On Friday, South Korea and the United States said that military cooperation between North Korea and Russia violated UN sanctions against Pyongyang and that the allies would ensure that there was a price to pay.
Vladimir Putin claims that Russia is engaged in an existential battle with the West over Ukraine and is courting Asian allies. However, the Russian president assured on Friday that his country, accused by Seoul and Washington of violating United Nations resolutions by its rapprochement with North Korea, had no intention of breaking its international commitments.
There has been no official announcement about a possible agreement on the delivery of equipment or military collaboration between the two countries, which are isolated and under international sanctions. According to the Kremlin, Moscow and Pyongyang did not sign “any agreements of a military nature or of any nature whatsoever” during Kim Jong-un’s visit to Russia.
“Top priority”
This is Kim Jong-un’s first official international trip since the Covid-19 pandemic. On Wednesday (13), the Pyongyang dictator met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, when he declared that rapprochement with Moscow would be the “top priority” of North Korean foreign policy.
On Saturday, Kim Jong-un will visit the Far Eastern Federal University, facilities of the Russian Academy of Sciences and laboratories working on marine biology,” President Vladimir Putin said in a statement on Russian television.
(With information from AFP)