Pay Close Attention to What Russia Just Sent to a Major North Korean Military Parade
North Korea invited visiting Chinese delegates and Russian artists to a paramilitary parade featuring rocket launchers pulled by trucks and tractors, state media said Saturday, in leader Kim Jong Un’s latest effort to display his ties with Moscow and Beijing in the face of deepening confrontations with Washington.
The event in the capital, Pyongyang, which began Friday night to celebrate North Korea’s 75th founding anniversary that fell on Saturday, came amid expectations that Kim will travel to Russia soon for a meeting with President Vladimir Putin that could focus on North Korean arm sales to refill reserves drained by the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine.
While China has sent a delegation led by Vice Premier Liu Guozhong to the North Korea’s anniversary celebrations, Russia sent a military song-and-dance group.
South Korean media speculated that the lack of Russian government officials at the festivities in Pyongyang could be related to preparations for a summit between Kim and Putin, which Washington expects within the month.
According to some U.S. reports, a summit could happen as early as next week.
Putin is expected to attend an international forum that runs from Sunday to Wednesday in the eastern Russian city of Vladivostok, which also was the site of his first summit with Kim in 2019 and now is seen as a possible venue for their next meeting.
South Korea’s spy agency told lawmakers in a closed-door briefing Thursday that North Korea and Russia also could be arranging an unexpected “surprise” route for Kim’s visit to avoid potential venues reported by the media.
North Korea has not confirmed any plans for Kim to visit Russia.
“Whether or not a Putin/Kim summit soon follows, the United States is attempting to deter serious violations of international law by preemptively releasing intelligence,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.
The growing cooperation between China, Russia and North Korea — plus Chinese President Xi Jinping’s decision to skip the Group of 20 Summit in India — give the appearance of a widening fissure in Asia’s geopolitical landscape, he said.
Still, a major Russia-North Korea arms deal, which would breach numerous international sanctions, should worry Beijing because “association with an emerging pariah state bloc could have negative repercussions for China’s globalized but struggling economy,” Easley said.
The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim received letters from Putin and Xi on the anniversary, in which both leaders said their countries’ strengthening ties with North Korea would contribute to the region’s peace and stability.
Saturday’s parade was centered on paramilitary organizations and public security forces protecting Pyongyang, rather than the military units that handle his nuclear-capable weapons systems, which have been the focus of other parades this year.
State media did not mention whether Kim made a speech during the parade, indicating that he likely didn’t.
KCNA said Kim met with Liu and other Chinese delegates ahead of the parade, where they exchanged views on “further intensifying the multi-faceted coordination and cooperation” between the countries.
Tensions in the Korean Peninsula are at their highest point in years, as the pace of both North Korea’s missile tests and the United States’ combined military exercises with South Korea and Japan have intensified in tit-for-tat.
To counter the deepening security cooperation between Washington, Seoul and Tokyo, Kim has been trying to boost the visibility of his partnerships with Moscow and Beijing as he seeks to break out of diplomatic isolation and have North Korea be a part of a united front against the United States.
The Western Journal has reviewed this Associated Press story and may have altered it prior to publication to ensure that it meets our editorial standards.
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