Russia and North Korea confirmed Monday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will visit Russia.
A brief statement on the Kremlin’s website said Kim’s visit is at the invitation of President Vladimir Putin and would take place “in the coming days.”
The Yonhap news agency and some other media published similar reports. Japan’s Kyodo news agency cited Russian officials as saying that Kim was possibly heading for Russia in his personal train. According to U.S. officials, Putin could focus on securing more supplies of North Korean artillery and other ammunition to refill declining reserves as he seeks to defuse a Ukrainian counteroffensive and show that he’s capable of grinding out a long war of attrition. That could potentially put more pressure on the United States and its partners to pursue negotiations as concerns about a protracted conflict grow despite their huge shipments of advanced weaponry to Ukraine over the past 17 months.
There are concerns that potential Russian technology transfers would increase the threat posed by Kim’s growing arsenal of nuclear weapons and missiles that are designed to target the United States, South Korea, and Japan. North Korea is the only nation aside of Russia and Syria to recognize the independence of two Russian-backed separatist regions in eastern Ukraine — Donetsk and Luhansk -– and it has also hinted at an interest in sending construction workers to those areas to help with rebuilding efforts.
Following Shoigu’s visit, Kim toured North Korea’s weapons factories, including a facility producing artillery systems where he urged workers to speed up the development and large-scale production of new kinds of ammunition. Experts say Kim’s visits to the factories likely had a dual goal of encouraging the modernization of North Korean weaponry and examining artillery and other supplies that could possibly be exported to Russia.
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