Reuters
North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un reportedly left Pyongyang Monday on his late father’s armored train for a secretive summit with President Vladimir Putin, his first trip abroad since before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Kremlin boss hopes to use the meeting, in Vladivostok on Tuesday or Wednesday, to persuade Kim to step up arms sales to bolster his illegal invasion of Ukraine. With domestic production hit by international sanctions, Russian army chiefs are keen to get their hands on North Korea’s huge stockpile of 152-mm ammo shells—conveniently based on old Soviet designs—to complement drone supplies from Iran.
Kim last visited Vladivostok, 4,000 miles east of Moscow but just 75 miles from North Korea’s tiny land border with Russia, in April 2019 for a formal summit that saw the eastern port city adorned with North Korean flags with their distinctive five-pointed stars.