Related...
... Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit North Korea and Vietnam in rare trips to long-time partners as he faces renewed challenges in his war on Ukraine.
Putin will travel to North Korea from June 18-19 and go on to Vietnam from June 19-20, according to Kremlin statements published Monday.
The trip to North Korea will be Putin's first since 2000. It comes as Kim Jong Un's regime is suspected of sending missiles and millions of rounds of munitions to help Putin in his grinding assault on Ukraine. With Kyiv now taking delivery of billions of dollars in fresh arms from its US and European allies, the window for a Russian breakthrough is narrowing.
North Korea possesses some of the largest stores of artillery and weapons that are interoperable with Soviet-era systems deployed on the front-lines in Ukraine. Satellite imagery indicates the arms transfers picked up momentum after Kim visited Putin in September, when the North Korean leader toured Russian weapons plants. Moscow and Pyongyang have denied the arms transfers despite ample evidence showing them taking place.
"I believe Kim and Putin will pick up from where they left off when Kim was in Russia in September 2023 and seek to further upgrade the bilateral relationship across many, if not all, realms," said Rachel Minyoung Lee, a senior fellow with the 38 North Program at the Stimson Center. She added this may mean the leaders upgrading a treaty adopted in 2000 to include stronger language about military and security cooperation.
"For as long as the war in Ukraine continues, North Korea-Russia relations will remain solid. What the relationship will look like after the war in Ukraine is over, that is harder to predict," said Lee, who worked as an analyst for the CIA's Open Source Enterprise for almost two decades. ...
