Kim Jong-un expected to hold weapons talks with Putin at remote Russian space base

Kim Jong-un has spoken of the “strategic importance” of his visit to Russia, ahead of expected weapons talks with Vladimir Putin at a space base in the remote region of Amur on Wednesday.

The North Korean leader received a VIP welcome upon his arrival in Russia, with a military honour guard and the national anthems of both countries playing, state-run new agency KCNA reported. Kim told his Russian hosts that his visit was a “clear manifestation” of North Korea “prioritising the strategic importance” of its ties with Russia, it reported.

Kim arrived on his private armoured train at Khasan station, the main rail gateway to Russia’s far east from North Korea, where Kim was filmed alighting and meeting the Russian environment minister, Alexander Kozlov, before continuing to travel north.

Kim, reportedly accompanied by senior arms industry and military officials, then resumed his trip and could meet Putin on Wednesday after the Eastern Economic Forum in the Russian port city of Vladivostok, where Putin has already arrived.

The current route of his armoured train indicates that he will not visit Vladivostok as earlier expected and will go toward the remote Amur region further north instead. Putin has said he will visit the Vostochny Cosmodrome in that region on Wednesday and the space base would provide a secure location for the two leaders to hold their summit.

Reporters granted access to the Russian leader at the Vladivostok forum refrained from asking Putin details of the visit but the president told journalists he would soon travel to the Vostochny Cosmodrome, a Russian spaceport some 1,000km (620 miles) from Vladivostok.

“I’ve got my programme there, and when I get there you’ll know,” he was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying.

The cosmodrome would be a symbolic venue as two isolated leaders to build cooperation in the military and aerospace fields. North Korea has had several failed space launches and may seek Russia’s aid to put its spy satellites into orbit. But so far the venue and the time of the meeting has not been confirmed.

There are concerns in the west that Pyongyang plans to provide weapons to Moscow to replace stocks that have been heavily depleted during 18 months of fighting in Ukraine.

The shortage in ammunition has forced Russia to conserve its shells and rockets, impose daily fire limits, and focus more on precision guided types of munitions over volumes of fire, said Michael Kofman, a senior fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“Russia is mobilising production, but output will be quite short of their needs,” he said. “Therefore they are likely to seek import from any source that can help make up for the deficit.”

Siemon Wezeman, a senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, said it was “entirely possible” North Korea had large stocks of ammunition that could be used by Russia.

“Whether any deal is struck remains to be seen,” he said. “We will not know for sure until there is hard evidence that Russia has used North Korean arms and ammunition on the battlefield in Ukraine,” he added.

Kim may also seek badly needed energy and food supplies. Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Andrei Rudenko, said Russian officials may discuss humanitarian aid with the North Korean delegation, according to Russian news agencies.

The White House warned last week that North Korea would “pay a price” if it supplies Russia with weaponry for the conflict in Ukraine.

Kim is travelling to Russia with his top military officials including Korean People’s Army Marshal Pak Jong-chon and Munitions Industry Department Director Jo Chun-ryong, analysts said.

This indicates a Putin-Kim summit “is likely to heavily focus on Russia and North Korea’s possible military cooperation,” Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, told AFP.

On Monday, the United States described Putin as desperate in seeking a meeting with Kim.

“Having to travel across the length of his own country to meet with an international pariah to ask for assistance in a war that he expected to win in the opening month, I would characterise it as him begging for assistance,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.

Both Moscow and Pyongyang have denied North Korea has or will supply arms to Russia, which has eaten into its vast stockpiles of munitions since it launched its Ukraine offensive early last year.

Kim has not travelled outside North Korea since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. His last proper overseas trip was in 2019, also to Russia to meet Putin.

Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert at Kookmin University in Seoul, told AFP that the upcoming meeting was part of Moscow’s “gentle diplomatic blackmail” of Seoul because Russia did not want South Korea to supply weapons to Kyiv.

Seoul is a major arms exporter and has sold tanks to Kyiv’s ally Poland, but longstanding domestic policy bars it from selling weapons into active conflicts.

“The major worry of the Russian government now is a possible shipment of the South Korean ammunition to Ukraine, not just one shipment but a lot of shipments,” Lankov said.

With Agence France-Presse