Vladimir Putin travels abroad, breaking the isolation decreed by the West. He goes to North Korea and Vietnamwhere he will be well received and will not run judicial risks (no one in the two friendly capitals will remember that in theory there is an international arrest warrant hanging over his head for the kidnapping of Ukrainian minors by the Russian Army). The Kremlin has announced that the president will be in Pyongyang on June 18 and 19 and will then stop in Hanoi.
The «unshakable comrade in arms»
The most operational mission is the one in Kim Jong-un’s “hermit kingdom”. The Tsar returns the visit paid to him by the Respected Marshal in September 2023. Putin had welcomed his self-described new friend «unshakable comrade in arms», in the Vostochny cosmodrome, promising him assistance with his missile and satellite plan. In another stage of the long journey on his armored train through Russia, the North Korean leader was able to admire the fighter-bomber assembly line named after the legendary Gagarin in Komsomolsk on the Amur.
Excited as he tested the cockpit of a SU-27 jet, Kim proclaimed «unity with Russia in the sacred struggle against imperialism» and toasted the “special operation of the gallant Russian Army in Ukraine”, offering “full support”.
Perhaps it is no coincidence that a couple of months later North Korean technicians managed to send their first military reconnaissance (spy) satellite into space. According to South Korean and American intelligence, at the center of the exchange is the sending of North Korean munitions to fuel the Russian offensive in Ukraine. Kiev’s army also collected scraps of short-range missiles built in North Korea on the battlefield.
5 million ammunition (and «human goods»)
In total, from October 2023, 10 thousand containers with 4.8 million bullets, mostly 152 mm, would have left for Russia by ship and train from Pyongyang’s arsenals.. According to the NATO “price list”, each shot of that large caliber is worth between 3 thousand and 4 thousand dollars. A billion-dollar business for North Korean coffers, a business that could be worth approximately 4% of annual GDP, valued at 25 billion dollars.
There is never enough ammunition. And now it’s Putin’s turn to go to Pyongyang. He had been there only once in 2000, at the beginning of his presidential career, when Kim III was still a teenager.
The North Korean ceremonial obviously wants to impress the guest. The capital’s airport has been cleaned and cleared of all old civilian aircraft, satellite images show. In the center of Pyongyang, preparations for a large demonstration have been noticed for days, perhaps a parade or even a popular mass show and acrobatic performances (choreographies of Soviet tradition copied and reworked by the North Koreans).
Putin will satisfy Kim’s desire for protagonism. And in addition to bullets the Marshal could also provide «human merchandise» which would be useful for Moscow’s war effort: it can send workers for industry and agriculture and “mercenary volunteers” for the international brigade that fights more or less secretly alongside the Russians. In exchange, Kim demands supplies of oil, foodstuffs, missile, satellite and aeronautics technology.
And then, the North Korean Marshal by exhibiting the axis with the Russian tsar can signal to Xi Jinping that North Korea has another friend in addition to the great Chinese protector.
Second stop organized by the Kremlin travel office in Hanoi. A politically symbolic visit, because the United States has recently focused heavily on Vietnam (with the aim of containing China) becoming its main trading partner. The American comment is harsh: “No country should give Putin a platform from which to promote his war of aggression,” said a spokesperson for the US embassy in Hanoi. However, the Vietnamese government also remains historically close to Russia, as evidenced by its absence from the conference on the Ukrainian crisis just held in Switzerland. Receiving Putin, from the point of view of the Vietnamese communist leadership, helps to consolidate its “balanced position” in the great game between the superpowers, from the United States to China and Russia.
