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SEOUL, South Korea — Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un are reportedly set to meet to discuss possible weapons for the war in Ukraine, space assistance for North Korea and joint naval drills, according to multiple dispatches Tuesday.
The meeting will prove a fresh challenge to the Biden administration, which has been forging a web of multinational coalitions in the Indo-Pacific with allies from Australia to Japan to meet the region’s growing economic and security challenges.
Those relationships are aimed at containing China and North Korea.
Moscow has reasons to upgrade its relationship with North Korea. Russia, a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, has traditionally kept the volatile rogue state at arm’s length.
North Korea has supported Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at the United Nations, and Russia and China have shot down U.S.-proposed sanctions on North Korean missile tests.
As it did in the run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the White House appears to be “pre-leaking” intelligence about a possible Kim-Putin meeting. U.S. officials have issued the reports partly to warn Pyongyang about the consequences of helping restock Russia’s depleted arsenal as the Ukraine war drags on.
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan took to the podium at the White House briefing Tuesday to underscore the risks Mr. Kim was taking if he agreed to stepped-up military ties with Russia.
“Providing weapons to Russia for use on the battlefield to attack grain silos and the heating infrastructure of major cities as we head into winter, to try to conquer territory that belongs to a modern sovereign nation – this is not going to reflect well on North Korea, and they will pay a price for this in the international community,” Mr. Sullivan told reporters.
The Russian government declined to comment Tuesday on the reports of a possible Kim-Putin meeting in the coming days. “We have nothing to tell you,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at a briefing.
An upgraded Putin-Kim partnership could bypass sanctions against both and signal the emergence of an anti-American bilateral or, with Beijing, trilateral coalition.
Upcoming summitry may offer clues.
Chinese President Xi Jinping will join Mr. Putin in skipping the two-day Group of 20 summit that strategic competitor India will kick off in New Delhi on Saturday. President Biden is expected to attend. On the day the summit ends, Mr. Putin will host his own event in Russia’s Far Eastern city of Vladivostok, barely 300 miles from the tri-border area linking China, North Korea and Russia.
The New York Times, citing senior U.S. officials, reported that Mr. Kim will travel to Russia to meet with Mr. Putin, possibly in Vladivostok, and might visit units of Russia’s Pacific fleet. Last month, a North Korean delegation visited Vladivostok and Moscow.
Both sides have needs. Mr. Putin wants artillery ammunition and anti-tank missiles, and Mr. Kim has been seeking space and nuclear submarine technologies, and perhaps food aid. South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported separately that Russia had invited North Korea to join regional naval drills, possibly alongside China.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu made the suggestion while visiting Pyongyang in July, the South Korean spy chief told the National Assembly’s Intelligence Committee in Seoul, Yonhap reported.
Looking for friends
A senior allied officer told The Washington Times in July that Russia and Ukraine are firing artillery at rough parity. Earlier in the war, Russians were firing far heavier barrages. With the battlefield initiative currently in Ukraine’s hands, a starved artillery force could be disastrous for Moscow.
North Korea is thought to have major stockpiles of tactical artillery munitions, such as 122 mm rockets and 152 mm shells calibrated to Russian barrels, but it appears to need help getting its space surveillance programs off the launchpad. Mr. Kim sustained a major public relations hit when attempts to place reconnaissance satellites into orbit failed in May and August.
Mr. Kim has recently urged naval upgrades while visiting fleet units. For decades, Pyongyang has prioritized weapons of mass destruction at the cost of navy funding.
Despite the matching security interests, Mr. Putin and Mr. Kim may struggle to find common ground on other fronts.
“The Russian and North Korea economies are not compatible, but we could expect to see North Korean workers in Russia in the near future,” said Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert at Seoul’s Kookmin University. “Is Russia going to subsidize North Korea the way China has been for years? Probably not. Russia has a much smaller economy than China.”
Diplomacy offers potentially fruitful partnerships.
The G20 summit in New Delhi ends on the same day Mr. Putin hosts the 8th Eastern Economic Summit in Vladivostok. The city was the location of Mr. Putin’s first, and so far only, summit with Mr. Kim, in 2019. If Mr. Kim or Mr. Xi turns up in Vladivostok this year, the level of U.S. and regional concern will soar.
“The Far Eastern Forum, especially in the current context, is not really a global event. It is a way for Putin to promote the Russian Far East,” said Sebastian Falleti, author of the French-language work “On the Trail of Kim Jong-un.” I don’t see a lot of downside for Kim: It’s not the forum; it is whether he would meet Putin or not, and it is happening just after the G20, which is a real global forum.”
Mr. Putin courts risk in cultivating North Korea, one of the world’s poorest and most isolated countries.
“North Korea remains toxic, and Russia must have a road plan to recover the prestige lost with the international community in Ukraine,” said Go Myong-hyun, a North Korea analyst at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul. “If they [move closer] to North Korea, Russia is going to be seen less as a major power, more a rogue state.”
• Andrew Salmon can be reached at asalmon@washingtontimes.com.
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