Kim Jong Un met Russia’s defense minister in the first high-level talks for North Korea since the start of the Covid pandemic, using the 70th anniversary of the end of Korean War fighting to signal fresh engagement with key partners.
(Bloomberg) — Kim Jong Un met Russia’s defense minister in the first high-level talks for North Korea since the start of the Covid pandemic, using the 70th anniversary of the end of Korean War fighting to signal fresh engagement with key partners.
Sergei Shoigu, leading the Russian delegation in Pyongyang for the anniversary, handed Kim a signed letter from President Vladimir Putin and discussed topics including mutual defense, North Korea’s official media reported Thursday.
Kim also led the Kremlin’s highest ranking military officer on a tour of a weapons exhibition, where nuclear-capable ballistic missiles and drones were on display, saying he expects the Russian army to achieve “great results” in its struggle to build a stronger nation, North Korea’s biggest newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, said.
Apart from the Russian delegation, a Chinese group led by Li Hongzhong, who sits on the Communist Party of China’s 24-member Politburo, arrived for the event, state media reported. The envoys from North Korea’s two most important security partners are the first foreign delegations to visit the state since Kim shut borders about three years ago at the start of the pandemic.
The celebrations come at a crucial time for Kim as he seeks to ease up on the border controls that slammed the brakes on his economy. He’s also looking for support from his powerful friends in Moscow and Beijing to fend off new sanctions as he increases the potency of his nuclear arms program designed to deliver strikes on the US and its allies.
Kim appears to have found new ways of making money by selling munitions to Russia to aid in its war on Ukraine, the US has said. Signs of a resumption of trade with China, historically North Korea’s biggest trading partner, led Fitch Solutions to estimate the economy returned to growth after two full years of contraction, though significant uncertainties remain.
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North Korea’s state media published photos of Kim and Shoigu in talks, at the weapons exhibit and at a celebratory event where singers took the stage and war veterans were in attendance.
The appearance of the Kremlin’s top military official in charge of the war on Ukraine led the White House to reassert its accusations that North Korea is supplying munitions for Russia’s invasion.
“It’s, I think, a testament of the fact that Mr. Putin knows he’s having his own defense procurement problems, his own inventory problems, that his military remains on the back foot, and he’s trying to shore that up,” John Kirby, National Security Council spokesperson, said at a briefing in Washington
An item that North Korea has and Russia likely wants is artillery shells that are interoperable with the Soviet-era weaponry pushed into service in Ukraine. The Kremlin’s war machine has been burning through its stocks and scrambling for supplies.
The Rodong Sinmun did not contain mention of a military parade that has been in the works for months, suggesting it could be held later Thursday, NK News, a Seoul-based provider of news and data on North Korea, reported. North Korea typically edits video from such parades and broadcasts the footage on state TV the next day.
Even though the Armistice Agreement signed on July 27, 1953, brought a cease-fire to the three-year conflict, North Korea and former Communist bloc partners are celebrating what they dub the “Victory in the Great Fatherland Liberation War.”
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The military parade would allow Kim to showcase his latest weaponry to the two countries that have been instrumental in its development. China fought with North Korea in the war and the Soviet Union helped supply the political and military backing to state founder Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of the current leader who sent troops across the border in 1950 to start the fighting.
At North Korea’s last military parade in February, the regime rolled out its biggest display of intercontinental ballistic missiles. This included what appeared to be a new, solid-fuel ICBM. Kim also brought along his daughter in an apparent effort to show the Kim dynasty has a new generation of leaders ready and it will depend on nuclear arms for its survival.
Since then, North Korea has twice tested the new solid fuel Hwasong-18 ICBM, designed to carry a multiple nuclear weapons. Solid-fuel missiles have the propellants baked into rockets, allowing them to stay hidden from spy satellites. They can also be rolled out and fired in minutes, giving the US less time to prepare for interception. The challenge becomes even greater if the missile carries several warheads instead of one.
The other ICBMs North Korea has tested are liquid-fueled, which make them vulnerable to attack before launch as it takes time to fill their engines with propellant while they sit on the pad.
“It’s getting increasingly hard to predict what new weapon programs Pyongyang may still have up their sleeve to debut at their next parade given the range of new systems both paraded and tested in recent years,” said Joseph Dempsey, a research associate for defense and military analysis at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
–With assistance from Stella Ko and Brian Fowler.
(Updates with comments from White House, arrival of Chinese delegation.)
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