North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un on Tuesday (September 12) reached Russia via his armoured train for a summit with President Vladimir Putin. Although the meeting’s location remained unclear, Kim’s train is heading towards Vostochny Cosmodrome — a Russian spaceport located in the country’s easternmost region. The summit is in the spotlight as it underscores the growing ties between two isolated leaders involved in separate confrontations with the West, especially with the United States. But why are the two presidents meeting? Is it unusual for them to meet? What can be the outcome of the summit? We explain. Is it unusual for Kim and Putin to meet? Yes, it is. This is the first time in four years and after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic that Kim has gone abroad — North Korea had sealed its border at the start of the pandemic in early 2020 and opened it only recently by sending a large group of taekwondo athletes and officials to an international competition last month. Moreover, the reclusive leader is known to rarely go on foreign trips. His first overseas trip came in 2018, about seven years after he assumed power as North Korea’s president. One of his last trips came in April 2019 to the Russian port city of Vladivostok for his first summit with Putin. But that meeting “was almost an afterthought amid the flashier meetings with then US President Donald Trump and multiple visits to meet with North Korea's only treaty ally and main economic partner, China,” Reuters said. Over the years, Russia-North Korea relations have seen several highs and lows. And until now, they have been far from being allies. For instance, in the late 2000s, Russia twice supported UN Security Council sanctions against North Korea over what was then a nascent nuclear weapons and missile programme. The upcoming summit, however, seems to be an attempt to boost ties between the two nations. That’s why it has grabbed the attention of analysts as well as the Western countries. What does Russia want from North Korea? Simply put, Russia wants to buy North Korean ammunition for its ongoing invasion of Ukraine, according to media reports. The meeting has come two months after Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu travelled to Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, and asked Kim to send more ammunition to Russia, US officials have suspected. They also think the East Asian country has already been supplying artillery shells, rockets and other ammunition to Moscow — much of them are likely copies of Soviet-era munitions. “Russia is in urgent need of (war supplies). If not, how could the defence minister of a powerful country at war come to a small country like North Korea?” Kim Taewoo, former head of Seoul’s Korea Institute for National Unification, said. He added that Shoigu was the first Russian defence minister to visit North Korea since the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991. If Russia does buy weapons from North Korea, it would be in violation of UN resolutions that ban all arms trade with the isolated country. Interestingly, Moscow supported these resolutions till recently. It remains to be seen how the West would react to such a development — in the run-up to the latest summit, the US warned Russia and North Korea against trading weapons. What does North Korea want from Russia? North Korea’s economy has been crippled by the pandemic-era border closures and Kim may ask for supplies of food and energy to address shortfalls. The meeting is also a move on Kim’s part to deepen relations with Moscow and end his country’s years of isolation. Apart from this, the leader is trying to counter the pressure from South Korea-US-Japan trilateral cooperation. Kim is likely also seeking Russian technology to support his plans to build high-tech weapons systems such as powerful long-range missiles, hypersonic ballistic weapons, nuclear-powered submarines and spy satellites, Hong Min, an analyst at Seoul’s Korea Institute for National Unification, told the AP. However, it isn’t clear if Russia would actually transfer its advanced technologies related to nuclear weapons and ICBMs. The country has always been reluctant to share its most important weapons technologies, even to its key allies like China. What could be the other likely outcomes of the meeting? The two countries are mulling over the possibility of carrying out a bilateral military exercise. Some reports suggest that Russia proposed a trilateral training exercise involving China. Either way, it would be North Korea’s first military drill with a foreign country since the end of the Korean War (1950-1953). The country has avoided training with a foreign military in line with its official “juche,” or “self-reliance,” philosophy. Analysts suggest the summit could lead to a final decision on these ideas. (With inputs from agencies)
