South Korea Confirms Kim Jong-un’s Arrival in Russia, Suggests ‘Arms Trade’ with Putin

The South Korean Defense Ministry confirmed on Tuesday a train carrying North Korea’s communist dictator Kim Jong-un had crossed into Russia, apparently navigating towards the far east of that country for an in-person meeting with strongman Vladimir Putin.

Both administrations confirmed Kim and Putin, longtime allies, would meet in eastern Russia in the near future. Neither has offered any details regarding the planned conversation, but multiple international media outlets – and the U.S. State Department –have suggested that Putin is considering buying North Korean weapons to be used in the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Given the deficient speed of Kim’s bulletproof train and the lack of information regarding a destination for it, when exactly Kim would arrive and when he would meet with Putin remain unknown. The Korea JoongAng Daily suggested Kim could be traveling upwards of 20 hours before reaching his last stop.

“We are not telling yet [where talks will take place]. In the Far East,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday. He added that the two leaders expected to hold a “one-on-one” exchange but did not intend to hold a press conference to discuss their meeting.

Images shared on social media by Russian state outlets show the train identified as carrying Kim Jong-un, crossing the North Korea-Russia border on Tuesday.

The South Korean news agency Yonhap, citing Russian media, reported that a meeting between Putin and Kim was expected on Wednesday in the Amur region of Russia. Putin is currently in Vladivostok, the far-east Russian city that hosted Kim Jong-un during his last visit in 2019, to attend the Eastern Economic Forum.

The Japanese Kyodo News agency similarly reported that Amur, where the Vostochny Cosmodrome space launch center is located, could host Kim, citing Putin’s own remarks teasing a “plan” at the space center in the near future. Kyodo cited anonymous sources who claimed, “Kim will visit a factory that manufactures Sukhoi fighters and other aircraft in Komsomolsk-on-Amur in the Russian Far East, following his talks with Putin.”

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the official state propaganda arm of the Kim regime, confirmed on Tuesday that Kim had left his country on Sunday afternoon local time “to visit the Russian Federation.”

“He will be accompanied by leading officials of the Party, government and armed forces organs,” the brief report read.

The trip marks the first time Kim has left the country since the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic erupted in neighboring China, prompting North Korea to shut its borders and reportedly issue “shoot-to-kill” orders against anyone attempting to cross. Kim’s planned meeting with Putin will mark his first exchange with a fellow head of state since meeting former American President Donald Trump in the Korean border village of Panmunjom in 2019.

South Korean Defense Ministry spokesperson Jeon Ha-kyou told reporters on Tuesday that Seoul is “closely monitoring” the possibility that Kim is visiting Russia to sell North Korean weapons.

“Considering that a large number of military personnel is accompanying him, (we) are closely monitoring whether negotiations over arms trade between North Korea and Russia, and technology transfers will take place,” Jeon said. Jeon did not specify if the arms trade is believed to be tied to the Ukrainian war, but the war is by far Russia’s largest and most important military engagement of the moment, the top reason Moscow would be looking to buy weapons from abroad.

Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, did suggest that “trade” was on the agenda, though not specifically trade in weapons.

“Above all, the issues related to bilateral ties, cooperation, trade and economic ties and cultural exchanges will be discussed,” Peskov told reporters on Tuesday, according to the Russian news outlet Tass. “Certainly, there will be an intensive exchange of opinions on the situation in the region and on international affairs in general, because this is of interest both to Putin and to our guest from Pyongyang.”
“Naturally, being neighbors, our countries cooperate in certain sensitive spheres which should not be publically revealed or announced,” he added.

The Russian Foreign Ministry separately claimed that discussions regarding “humanitarian supplies” to impoverished North Korea was “a possibility,” without elaborating.

File/North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attends a ceremony upon his departure from Russia, outside the railway station in the far-eastern Russian port of Vladivostok on April 26, 2019. (YURI KADOBNOV/AFP via Getty Images)

The administration of far-left President Joe Biden, which has invested billions in supporting Ukraine and treats the war as America’s top priority, has spent much of 2023 accusing North Korea of aiding the Russian invasion. In January, White House National Security Council (NSC) communications director John Kirby claimed that North Korea was arming the Wagner Private Military Company (PMC), a mercenary organization that was on the front lines in Ukraine until June. That month, warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin led his Wagner mercenaries out of Ukraine for a “march for justice” against Moscow itself, claiming the Russian Defense Ministry was intentionally killing his troops. Prigozhin allegedly died in a plane crash exactly two months later.

“As we have said publicly, North Korea delivered infantry rockets and missiles into Russia for use by Wagner toward the end of last year,” Kirby said at the time.

Following the Prigozhin mutiny, which failed after barely 24 hours, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu’s first international engagement was a visit to Pyongyang in July, where he and his delegation became the first high-ranking foreign officials to visit North Korea since the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic began. Shoigu’s itinerary included a tour of a facility North Korean media described as a “weaponry exhibition house,” where Kim Jong-un personally showed off North Korea’s arsenal of drones, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and other weapons.

KCNA claimed that Shoigu called North Korea on that occasion ” the strongest army in the world.”

In August, Kirby repeated his accusations of Moscow buying North Korean weapons.

“Russian Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu recently traveled to North Korea in a bid to convince North Korea to sell munitions to Russia to support Russia’s war,” Kirby said, according to the South Korean news agency Yonhap. “Our information indicates that Russia is seeking to increase military cooperation to the DPRK [North Korea] such as through DPRK sale of artillery munitions, again to Russia.”

In response to reports on Monday that Kim had departed his country for a meeting with Putin, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters during a briefing that “obviously it [the visit] means that he [Putin] is having trouble sustaining the military effort and so is looking for help from North Korea.”

Miller mocked Putin for “traveling across his own country hat in hand to beg Kim Jong-un for military assistance.”

“I will remind both countries that any transfer of arms from North Korea to Russia would be in violation of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions,” Miller added, “And we of course have aggressively enforced our sanctions against entities that fund Russia’s war effort, and we will continue to enforce those sanctions and will not hesitate to impose new sanctions if appropriate.”

Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.