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Russian President Vladimir Putin has pledged to work with North Korea to strengthen both regimes’ resistance to Western sanctions as he prepared to make his first visit to Pyongyang in 24 years and sign a new strategic partnership with Kim Jong Un .
Putin, who will arrive in Pyongyang late on Tuesday for a two-day visit, said Russia would seek to work closely with North Korea to resist pressure over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile program. The North Korean state newspaper Rodong Sinmun.
“We will develop alternative trade mechanisms and mutual arrangements not controlled by the West and jointly oppose unlawful unilateral restrictions,” Putin wrote, adding that the countries would “build an architecture of equal and indivisible security in Eurasia.”
He also thanked North Korea for its support of Moscow in the war in Ukraine and pledged to support Pyongyang despite “American pressure, blackmail and military threats.”
North Korea on Tuesday reaffirmed its support for the Russian invasion, which Kim called a “holy war.”
Putin’s visit, which the Kremlin said would include a concert in his honor, comes amid growing concern in the West over deepening trade and military cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang.
The Financial Times reported in March that Russia was supplying oil and petroleum products to North Korea in apparent exchange for ballistic missiles and artillery shells for battlefield use in Ukraine.
US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said on Monday that North Korea had supplied Russia with “dozens of ballistic missiles and more than 11,000 containers of munitions”. Moscow and Pyongyang have denied arms transfers.
Russia also blocked the renewal of a UN panel that monitors enforcement of Security Council sanctions against North Korea, resulting in that body’s dissolution.
Kim met Putin for the first time in four years in September in Russia’s Far East, where he toured the Vostochny Cosmodrome, Russia’s most advanced space rocket launch site. Kim also invited the Russian president for a reciprocal trip.
Putin and Kim are expected to sign a strategic partnership agreement that Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov said is “driven by the profound evolution of the geopolitical situation in the world and the region.”
Ushakov told reporters on Monday that the agreement would reflect “what has happened between our countries in recent years in terms of international politics, economics and ties across the board, including security issues,” according to Interfax.
The Russian delegation includes new Defense Minister Andrei Belousov, as well as Denis Manturov, the top deputy prime minister overseeing the defense sector, and Alexander Novak, Moscow’s top energy official.
The warming ties have also raised fears in Russia’s west about providing technical assistance or transferring military technology to North Korea. Two months after Kim’s visit to Russia, North Korea claimed its first successful launch of a military spy satellite. Yuri Borisov, the head of Russia’s space agency, is also accompanying Putin to Pyongyang.
The visit comes amid recent tensions on the Korean Peninsula after both countries scrapped a 2018 military agreement aimed at easing hostilities along their shared border.
South Korea’s military fired warning shots Tuesday at dozens of North Korean soldiers who briefly crossed the demilitarized zone between the countries, the second such incident this month. The North Korean military also suffered several casualties after a landmine exploded in the DMZ.
The Koreas have also stepped up their psychological warfare efforts, with Seoul restarting loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts across the border in retaliation for Pyongyang’s sending of waste-filled balloons.
Jenny Town, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center think tank, said Putin’s visit “had political value for Kim, and demonstrated a strong global position” to his domestic audience.
“Kim Jong Un gets a lot out of the relationship with Russia. As he emerges from the very difficult period of pandemic isolation and after failed negotiations with the US and South Korea, the meeting with Putin is a major political victory for him,” she said.
“[It] this image helps present that [Pyongyang] is a much bigger player in global politics than he should be.”