Kremlin coy on summit between Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un
Barnini Chakraborty
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The Kremlin on Tuesday said it could not confirm a report that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is planning to travel to Russia to meet with President Vladimir Putin for a historic summit between the two largely isolated nations in desperate need of ammunition, food, and technology.
“No, we cannot [confirm this],” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said when asked by a reporter about a possible face-to-face. “We have nothing to say on this.”
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North Korea also hasn’t commented on the matter.
A meeting between the two leaders would be the first “summit” Kim has participated in with a foreign leader since Pyongyang closed its borders in January 2020.
Kim is reportedly preparing to go to Vladivostok, Russia, later this month, according to the New York Times, to discuss arming Russia with more weapons in its war with neighboring Ukraine. Vladivostok was also the site of the two leaders’ first and only meeting in April 2019. Putin is looking to secure additional artillery shells and antitank missiles while Kim wants food and energy shipments as well as a transfer of weapon technologies in return, specifically for satellite and nuclear-powered submarines.
The two leaders could meet as early as Sunday at the Eastern Economic Forum, according to new intelligence provided to the newspaper.
In July, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu traveled to North Korea to ask Kim to send more ammunition to Russia, according to U.S. officials. Shoigu also said the countries were considering holding military exercises for the first time, a move that could cause concern for the United States, Japan, and South Korea, which have recently deepened military and economic cooperation to counter nuclear threats from North Korea and China’s growing power in the region. Kim has accused the leaders of the three countries of being “gang bosses” and said the 11-day trilateral naval exercises conducted in the waters off the Korean Peninsula have made the area unstable while increasing the threat of nuclear war.
The North Korean leader also called on his military to be ready for combat against what Kim described as a plot to invade his country. He added that his navy would soon be equipped with nuclear weapons in order to support its nuclear war “deterrence” strategy. Kim has interpreted the naval exercises as a rehearsal for an invasion despite denials from Washington.
The U.S. has long suspected North Korea of providing Russia with rockets, artillery shells, and other ammunition as its war with Ukraine has dragged on and stretched Moscow’s military abilities.
“Russia is in urgent need of (war supplies),” Kim Taewoo, the former head of Seoul’s Korea Institute for National Unification, told the Associated Press. “If not, how could the defense minister of a powerful country at war come to a small country like North Korea?”
Taewoo added that Shoigu was the first Russian defense minister to visit North Korea since the 1991 disintegration of the Soviet Union.
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Even though buying munitions from North Korea would be a violation of United Nations resolutions that ban all arms trade with the Asian country, it seemingly hasn’t stopped Russia, which has also turned to Iran, another sanctioned country, for help. Since mid-2022, Iran has become Russia’s top military backer, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.
Putin and Kim have expressed mutual admiration for one another in the past. In June, Kim promised to keep “holding hands firmly” with Putin in a letter he sent to the Russian leader. Kim said the countries’ close relationship had “weathered all trials of history” and offered his country’s “full support and solidarity.”