Kim, Putin hold talks at Russia’s satellite launch center

SEOUL, South Korea — Washington and Seoul nervously monitored a rare meeting Wednesday between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Russian President Vladimir Putin at Russia’s flagship space center in the Far East.

In Mr. Kim’s brief absence from Pyongyang, his troops test-fired two short-range ballistic missiles. The U.N. Security Council, including permanent member Russia, has said North Korea is not permitted to possess such technology.

The Biden administration has warned about the pursuit of a deal for North Korea to supply badly needed weaponry and ammunition for Russia’s war in Ukraine in exchange for aid, technology and diplomatic support.

Russian rockets were also in focus. The talks included Mr. Kim’s top munitions adviser and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. The summit site was the Vostochny Cosmodrome, a spaceport that launches unmanned vehicles into orbit. It is one of Mr. Putin’s pet projects. In recent months, North Korea has sustained two embarrassing failures trying to launch intelligence satellites into space.

Footage released by Russian media showed Mr. Kim reading a speech at a flag-bedecked dinner. Earlier footage showed Mr. Kim and Mr. Putin sitting down for talks, being guided around outdoor launch pads and inspecting rockets.

Both looked upbeat. Russian officials favored business suits, and Mr. Kim’s delegation included elderly officers in dated, Soviet-style military uniforms. The bilateral talks lasted about four hours.

Mr. Kim said he would offer “unconditional support” for Russia’s “sacred fight.” Asked whether Russia would be prepared to offer satellite technologies to Mr. Kim, Mr. Putin replied, “That’s exactly why we came here.”

After the meeting, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that Russia sees opportunities for deepening cooperation with North Korea in space and other fields.

Mr. Putin indicated that comradeship between the two isolated states could extend beyond aid and arms.

“The vast agenda, the program, provides for visits not only to the Vostochny Cosmodrome but also to other major high-tech clusters, industrial enterprises and innovation centers in Russia’s Far East,” he said, according to a report from the official Russian Tass news agency.

Russian media said Mr. Putin revealed that Mr. Kim’s trip would continue with a stop in Vladivostok and a tour of defense and manufacturing facilities in Komsomolsk-on-Amur. The Reuters news agency said Mr. Kim would also observe the capabilities of Russia’s Pacific Fleet before heading home on his signature personal train.

U.S. officials leaked intelligence of the meeting last week. They said Mr. Kim was seeking satellite and nuclear submarine technologies in return for munitions supplies for Russian forces.

Neither side offered information, let alone a written compact, on any agreement. Their last meeting in 2019 produced no significant outcome. Russia has traditionally been leery of its relationship with its unpredictable, impoverished neighbor.

North Korea and the USSR signed a mutual defense treaty in 1961, but that fell by the wayside after the collapse of the Soviet Union three decades later. North Korea maintains a mutual defense treaty only with China.

Wish lists

The two leaders head heavily sanctioned states aligned against a U.S.-led coalition of prosperous democracies in the East and West.

With his military bogged down in Ukraine, Mr. Putin reportedly needs ammunition for tactical tube and rocket artillery and possibly anti-tank weapons and ballistic missiles. North Korea is thought to have massive weapons stocks calibrated for Russian weapons.

Manpower could be on the table. Russian officials and media have called for North Korean labor — cheap, disciplined, controlled — to assist reconstruction efforts in occupied areas of Ukraine. Mr. Putin has sought to develop the resource-rich eastern fringes of his vast country throughout his presidency.

Mr. Kim, whose nation is geographically unsuited for agriculture and subject to harsh weather, is perennially short of food. Though North Korea has coal reserves, it has to import all its oil. Russia is well placed to supply both commodities and could reduce Pyongyang’s dependence on Beijing.

The location of the meeting is telling, given Pyongyang’s push to expand its footprint in space. Satellite launch vehicles and ballistic missiles share dual-use technologies, and the Ukraine war has emphasized the importance of satellites for information and weapons guidance.

Pyongyang’s two failed attempts this year to place satellites into orbit could undercut the deterrence power of its impressive missile force.

The North may also be seeking Russian advanced naval technology. Last week, Pyongyang rolled out a submarine with claimed nuclear armaments but with conventional propulsion.

Mr. Kim’s delegation reflects his priorities. South Korean media have identified key personnel from photos of the summit, including Foreign Affairs Minister Choe Son-hui, space science committee leader Pak Thae-song, munitions industry director Jo Chun-ryong and possibly navy chief Kim Myong-sik.

The Vostochny Cosmodrome, which conducted its first launch in 2016, slashes Moscow’s reliance on the Soviet-era Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan has not supported Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Vostochny handles unmanned launches and is located on key transport corridors. Its remoteness from population centers provides safety in cases of failed launches.

Just before the meeting on Wednesday, North Korea launched two short-range ballistic missiles into the East Sea/Sea of Japan. Carnegie Endowment Fellow Ankit Panda, an expert on Asia nuclear policies, wrote on social media that it was North Korea’s first launch while its state leader was abroad.

Pyongyang has claimed its missile forces now have greater authority to launch strikes if the state leader, Mr. Kim, is incommunicado or incapacitated. Some outside analysts have questioned whether the ultra-centralized state would push launch responsibility down the command chain.

Russia reckoning

Some Kremlin watchers think Mr. Putin agreed to meet with the unpredictable Mr. Kim in part to warn Seoul not to arm Ukraine. By coincidence, South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo was visiting an air base in Minsk Mazowiecki, in eastern Poland. He watched Korean FA-50 fighter jets that Poland, among the strongest supporters of Ukraine in the war, purchased with other military equipment.

On Russian state television after the meeting, Mr. Putin sidestepped the question of whether Moscow was considering military aid to Pyongyang despite the U.N. sanctions.

“There are certain restrictions. Russia is following all of them,” Mr. Putin said. “There are things we can talk about, we’re discussing, thinking. Russia is a self-sufficient country, but there are things we can bring attention to. We’re discussing them.”

In New York, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told a press briefing that “any form of cooperation of any country with North Korea must respect the sanctions regime that was imposed by the Security Council.”

Calling their meeting “a nice political show,” Russia-born Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert at Seoul’s Kookmin University, did not think Moscow would offer highly sensitive military technologies because it would create “nothing but headaches.”

“If Russia, in efforts to get short-term gains, delivers long-lasting damage [to the international security structure] … it will probably lead to the further marginalization of Russia in world politics,” Mr. Lankov said.

Others argue that Mr. Putin crossed the Rubicon into rogue state territory with his invasion of Ukraine.

“I think Putin is as toxic as Kim,” said Leonid Petrov, a Russian-born North Korea expert at Australian National University. “There is not much left for them to expect from the West or any civilized country. Even [Chinese President] Xi Jinping might feel a little concerned about personal hygiene and PR.”

Mr. Putin could be “learning from Kim’s playbook,” Mr. Petrov said, especially after he was rocked by the abortive uprising in June of Wagner Group mercenaries under former ally Yevgeny Prigozhin, later killed in a still-unexplained plane crash.

“Kim is probably the leading world symbol of anti-Americanism and is a regime survival champion, which is something Putin is concerned about after Prigozhin’s mutiny,” he said. “Regime survival and mustering of the domestic population can only be achieved on a war footing, and that is why Kim will never end the Korean War. The day after peace is proclaimed, the Kim dynasty will be redundant.”

• This article is based in part on wire service reports.