Putin waves at Kim from window of his jet as he leaves for Vietnam

Vladimir Putin waved goodbye to his ‘fiery friend’ Kim Jong Un from the window of his presidential plane as he jetted off for Vietnam late last night, capping off a two-day state visit to North Korea that saw the leaders strengthen their nations’ ties – not to mention a blossoming personal friendship. 

The pair inked a comprehensive partnership agreement yesterday that heralded a major upgrade in bilateral relations, covering security, trade, investment, cultural and humanitarian ties – not to mention a mutual defence pact that requires each country to provide immediate military assistance to the other in the event of war. 

Such a deal is seen as a landmark moment for Russia-North Korea relations, bringing the two countries closer now than at any time since the Cold War.

But the interactions between Putin and Kim as they toured Pyongyang suggested their own personal relationship was stronger still.

Perhaps able to empathise and understand one another unlike anyone else, the two supremely powerful leaders displayed outright affection, sharing frequent bouts of laughter and tight embraces as they enjoyed the delights of the North Korean capital. 

They also lavished one another with gifts – Putin received a pair of rare hunting dogs and several artworks depicting his likeness, before taking Kim for a spin in a luxury Russian limousine that he later offered to the North Korean leader along with a tea set and an admiral’s sword. 

After exchanging presents in the grounds of the Kumsusan presidential guest house yesterday, the two despots attended a gala concert before chatting late into the evening over a glass of red wine. 

With Putin’s presidential plane waiting on the tarmac, the pair shared one final hug and bid one another a firm farewell, before the Russian President clambered aboard. 

Moments later he was seen waving at Kim from the window as the North Korean leader and his dignitaries saw him off.  

Putin will now be hoping his trip to Vietnam proves equally fruitful. 

Putin was greeted by dignitaries upon his arrival in Hanoi today and enjoyed a smart reception, though it paled in comparison to the enormous parade orchestrated by Kim in Pyongyang two days earlier. 

There he will share talks with Vietnam’s new President To Lam along with Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong – Vietnam’s most powerful politician.

Like Kim, President Lam also pulled Putin in for a hug upon their meeting in the Vietnamese capital, and the pair appeared at ease.  

Russia, which is Vietnam’s largest arms supplier and also provides vital oil exploration technologies, is keen to maintain ‘close and effective cooperation’ in energy, industry, technology, education, security and trade, said Russian Ambassador to Vietnam Gennady S. Bezdetko said.

Hanoi and Moscow have had diplomatic relations since 1950, and this year marks 30 years of a treaty establishing ‘friendly relations’ between Vietnam and Russia.

In an article written for Nhan Dan, the official newspaper of Vietnam’s Communist Party, Putin vowed to deepen the ties between Moscow and Hanoi and hailed Vietnam as a ‘strong supporter of a fair world order based on international law, on the principles of equality of all states and non-interference in their domestic affairs.’

He also thanked ‘Vietnamese friends for their balanced position on the Ukrainian crisis,’ in the article released by the Kremlin.

Vietnam has thus far remained neutral on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But neutrality is getting trickier, with the US Embassy in Hanoi criticising Putin’s visit, saying that ‘no country should give Putin a platform to promote his war of aggression and otherwise allow him to normalise his atrocities.’ 

The new agreement between Russia and North Korea reached in Pyongyang yesterday has raised alarm in South Korea after it was revealed that the two countries had pledged to assist one another in the event of an armed conflict.

South Korean officials said they were still interpreting the results and trying to work out what Russia’s response might be Seoul and Pyongyang were to go to war, while analysts were mixed on whether the agreement obligates Russia to an automatic military invention – or whether the pact was carefully worded enough to avoid such a commitment.

The granular details of the strategic partnership between Russia and North Korea were not immediately clear, but both leaders described it as a major upgrade of their ties, including terms that spanned areas from security to medical education.

Kim declared it the ‘strongest ever treaty’ between the two nations, raising the ‘fiery friendship’ between them at the level of an alliance, and vowed full support for Russia’s war in Ukraine. 

Putin meanwhile said the deal ‘really is a breakthrough document’ that reflects a shared desire to move relations to a higher level, adding that it provided, ‘among other things, for mutual assistance in case of aggression against one of the parties to this treaty’.

The signing of the deal yesterday came hours after Putin was met with a reception fit for a king upon his arrival in Pyongyang.

After being greeted at the airport with a warm handshake and a hug by the pariah state’s dynastic dictator, a huge motorcade ferried the Russian President to Pyongyang’s main square where thousands upon thousands of adoring citizens were eagerly awaiting his arrival, along with a full military band and dozens of dancers.

The crowds erupted into cheers and let loose a torrent of bright coloured balloons at the sight of the Kremlin chief, who stood beside his host and took in the rapturous applause before they made their way through Kim Il Sung Square along a huge red carpet. 

The pair were saluted by a string of military guards atop snow-white horses before making their way past a gaggle of children clutching balloons and waving frantically at the smirking autocrats. 

Other revellers were seen touting huge portraits of the Russian President standing beside the Russian flag – the colours of which adorned the facades of buildings around the square. 

The ceremony also gave Kim a chance to introduce Putin to a host of key figures in his Politburo, including Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui; top aide and ruling party secretary Jo Yong Won; and his powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, who besides her role as chief propagandist has in recent months become a fiery-tongued mouthpiece of the regime.

After touring the square, Kim and Putin clambered into an open-top limousine, which whisked them away to Pyongyang’s Kumsusan State Guest House, North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said, for their first talks together on North Korean soil.

The agency described their meeting as a historic event that demonstrates the ‘invincibility and durability’ of the two nations’ friendship and unity. 

The Russian President added that the ‘new fundamental document will form the basis of our ties for a long perspective’, according to Russian news agencies.

North Korea is under heavy UN Security Council economic sanctions over its nuclear weapons and missile programmes, while Russia is also grappling with sanctions by the United States and its Western partners over its aggression in Ukraine.

Putin, making his first trip to North Korea in 24 years, thanked North Korea for ‘consistent and unchanging support of the Russian policies, including in the Ukrainian direction’, hailing ties that date back to the Soviet army fighting the Japanese military on the Korean Peninsula in the closing moments of World War II, and Moscow’s support for Pyongyang during the Korean War.

‘Our pilots flew tens of thousands of combat missions during the liberation war of 1950-53,’ Putin said.

Kim responded that relations between Moscow and Pyongyang are at a new high, even compared to Soviet times, and voiced hope that ‘the fiery friendship of the two countries will grow more monolithic,’ according to Russian state news agencies.

The North Korean leader was quoted vowing his country’s ‘full support and solidarity to the Russian government, army and people in carrying out the special military operation in Ukraine to protect sovereignty, security interests and territorial integrity’.

Kim has used similar language in the past, consistently saying that North Korea supports what he describes as a just action to protect Russia’s interests and blaming the crisis on the US-led West’s ‘hegemonic policy.’

It wasn’t immediately clear what that support from Pyongyang might look like.

He also hailed Russia’s ‘important role and mission in preserving the strategic stability and balance in the world.’

Putin’s visit to North Korea – his first since the early months of his initial presidential term – comes amid growing concerns about an arms arrangement in which Pyongyang provides Moscow with badly needed munitions to fuel Russia’s war in Ukraine in exchange for economic assistance and technology transfers that would enhance the threat posed by Kim’s nuclear weapons and missile programme. 

Putin also said in his published remarks that Russia and North Korea will develop trade and payment systems ‘that are not controlled by the West’ and jointly oppose sanctions against the countries, which he described as ‘illegal, unilateral restrictions’.

Moscow and Pyongyang have been allies since North Korea‘s founding after World War II and have drawn even closer since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 led to the West isolating Putin internationally.

The United States and its allies have accused North Korea of supplying Russia with much-needed arms, including ballistic missiles to use in Ukraine, which mocked the growing relationship between the two nations. 

The North has denied giving Russia military hardware but, ahead of his trip, Putin thanked Kim Jong Un‘s government for helping the war effort.

‘We highly appreciate that the DPRK (North Korea) is firmly supporting the special military operations of Russia being conducted in Ukraine,’ Putin wrote in an article published by Pyongyang’s state media on Tuesday.

Russia and the North are ‘now actively developing the many-sided partnership’, Putin wrote.     

Both countries are under rafts of UN sanctions – Pyongyang since 2006 over banned nuclear and ballistic missile programmes and Moscow over the invasion of Ukraine.

Putin praised North Korea for ‘defending their interests very effectively despite the US economic pressure, provocation, blackmail and military threats that have lasted for decades’.

He also hailed Moscow and Pyongyang for ‘maintaining the common line and stand at the UN’.

North Korea said the visit showed bilateral ties ‘are getting stronger day by day’, the official Korean Central News Agency reported, and would ‘give fresh vitality to the development of the good-neighbourly cooperative relations between the two countries’.  

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba urged the international community to counter ‘the lonely bromance’ between Putin and Kim by increasing arms supplies to Kyiv.

‘The best way to respond to it is to continue strengthening the diplomatic coalition for just and lasting peace in Ukraine and delivering more Patriots and ammunition to Ukraine,’ Kuleba told AFP.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Putin’s trip showed how he was ‘dependent’ on authoritarian leaders.

‘Their closest friends and the biggest supporters of the Russian war effort – war of aggression – (are) North Korea, Iran and China,’ Stoltenberg said.