U.S. expresses alarm as Putin, Kim confirm plans to talk

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SEOUL, South Korea — North Korean leader Kim Jong-un arrived in Russia by armored train Tuesday, as the Kremlin confirmed that he will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on a potential aids-for-arms deal that could boost Russia’s flagging invasion of Ukraine.

North Korea shares a short land border with Russia. The nearly 300-mile trip would be the reclusive North Korean leader’s first departure from his country since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic more than three years ago.

Pyongyang’s state-controlled Korean Central News Agency reported that Mr. Kim would meet with Mr. Putin “soon.” Russia’s Tass news agency said they would meet “in the coming days.” Hours later, the Kremlin confirmed the plans as Mr. Putin arrived in the Russian Far Eastern city of Vladivostok for a previously scheduled economic development conference and invited Mr. Kim to meet with him.

“At the invitation of Russian President Vladimir Putin, [Mr. Kim] will make an official visit to Russia in the next few days,” the Kremlin said in a report. North Korea is one of the few countries in the world to openly endorse Mr. Putin’s war in Ukraine, and the Russian leader said he wanted to “expand bilateral ties in all respects in a planned way by pooling efforts.”

The Associated Press reported that its journalists near the North Korea-Russia border spotted a green and yellow private train — similar to one Mr. Kim used for past jaunts — at a station on the North Korean side of a border river. Mr. Kim and Mr. Putin could meet as soon as Tuesday.

South Korean officials in Seoul said Monday that Mr. Kim’s armored train was in motion and likely headed for Russia.

Biden administration officials have been eyeing the rumored summit with concern. Russia has been put on the defensive in its 18-month-old invasion of Ukraine and is widely thought to want to purchase or trade arms with Mr. Kim to replenish its depleted armory.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters that the U.S. would be watching the meeting closely and that an arms swap would violate United Nations sanctions that Russia has agreed to observe.

“Any transfer of arms from North Korea to Russia would be a violation of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions,” and the Biden administration “will not hesitate to impose new sanctions,” Mr. Miller said.

Sen. Christopher A. Coons, a Delaware Democrat who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and is known to be close to President Biden, warned Monday that a military deal between the two authoritarian leaders could increase tensions with the West.

Mr. Putin is “desperate for more equipment, he’s desperate for more support,” Mr. Coons told MSNBC. “North Korea has a very large arsenal of artillery, of materiel. So, they may well make a devil’s deal.”

Russian overtures

In July, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu made a surprise visit to North Korea. He met Mr. Kim, held talks, watched a military parade and visited an exposition of North Korean weapons, including newly unveiled drones.

Mr. Putin is hosting the four-day Eastern Economic Forum, a pet project of his, on the distant edge of the Russian Far East. The forum, which kicked off Sunday, seeks to draw investment into the vast, resource-rich, underdeveloped region.

The Russian and North Korean leaders face limited travel options these days. With an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court hanging over his head, Mr. Putin attended neither the Group of 20 summit on Saturday and Sunday in India nor the BRICS summit last month in South Africa.

Mr. Kim last traveled overseas in February 2019, when he met with President Trump for an abortive summit in Vietnam. Two months later, he held his first — and so far only — meeting with Mr. Putin in Vladivostok.

It was unclear whether Mr. Kim would participate in the summit or just hold talks with Mr. Putin. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry S. Peskov told reporters that the two delegations would hold talks and the two leaders would meet “one on one if necessary.”

“I don’t know how it is going to be arranged, maybe just a bilateral — [Mr. Kim] is not necessarily going to participate,” said Oleg Kiriyanov, head of Seoul-based think tank Asia Risk Research Center. “But if he comes, I think Russians will want him to take part, as not so many leaders came.”

The leaders have fruitful grounds for cooperation. Both of their economies are under harsh trade and investment sanctions from the U.S. and its allies. Soviet-era arms are the basis of North Korea’s armory and could be deployed relatively quickly to the battlefields in Ukraine.

Western analysts say Russia is short of shells and rockets for its deadliest combat arm: tactical artillery. From early in the conflict, many Russian voices have argued for North Korean labor, which is cheap and disciplined, to assist Russian engineers.

North Korea is perennially short of food and energy. Given the high-profile failures to put two reconnaissance satellites into orbit, it also seeks space technology in addition to nuclear submarine technology.

Mr. Kiriyanov, a Seoul-based Russian, suggested that Russia could send food and fuel to North Korea. He was dubious about transfers of high-end military, underwater or space technologies.

“Giving military technologies to North Korea is a dangerous step on the Russian side as you never know how they will use it,” he said. “During the USSR, Moscow did not want to give nuclear or missile technologies as North Korea used to be inclined to risky actions and provocations.”

Mr. Kim has another reason to seek deeper relations with Mr. Putin. North Korea’s elite are believed to resent the country’s heavy dependence on China and would like to diversify supply lines and diplomatic options.

“I wonder if this relationship makes sense and to what extent Beijing will be naturally suspicious,” said Mason Richey, who teaches international relations at Seoul’s Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. “They may be uncomfortable to see these two legs of that rickety triangle cooperating so closely.”

Mr. Richey noted that the officials heading the Chinese delegation to North Korea in July to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the end of Korean War hostilities and the 75th anniversary of the foundation of the North Korean state over the weekend were of lower rank than Russian delegations.

Some analysts say the meeting indicates Mr. Putin’s growing desperation to strike a deal with an unpredictable leader whom Moscow has long held at arm’s length.

“The needs on the Russian side are dire,” former State Department official Michael Kimmage, who now teaches at Catholic University, told Foreign Policy. “Russia needs new markets for its energy, it needs arms, and it needs ways to get around Western sanctions and is turning to what is considered the most closed-off dictatorship in the world for help now.”

The summit may further pressure South Korea to provide lethal military assistance to Ukraine. Seoul has given billions of dollars in humanitarian aid but has balked at war support.

While voicing concern about an expanded Russia-North Korea link, Mr. Biden’s aides have argued that the meeting signifies Mr. Putin’s weakening position as he is forced to rely on pariah states such as North Korea and Iran to keep his armies in the field.

Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer told reporters traveling with Mr. Biden on his diplomatic tour of India and Vietnam over the weekend that Pyongyang “may be the best and may be the only option” for the Russian leader.

“It is interesting to reflect for a minute on what it says that when Russia goes around the world looking for partners that can help it, it lands on North Korea,” Mr. Finer said.