Kim Jong-Un arrives in Russia for talks on expected arms deal with Putin
Justin McCurry
Kim Jong-un has arrived in Russia for a rare summit with president Vladimir Putin to discuss a possible deal to supply North Korean arms for the war in Ukraine.
Kim’s armoured train arrived at Khasan station, the main rail gateway to Russia’s Far East from North Korea, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported on Tuesday, citing an unnamed Russian official source.
The meeting is expected to be held on Tuesday afternoon on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum in the Russian port city of Vladivostok, where Putin has already arrived.
Kim’s trip to Russia and meeting with Putin will be a full-scale visit to strengthen ties, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in a video posted online.
The meeting comes amid concerns in the west that Pyongyang plans to provide weapons to Moscow to replace stocks that have been heavily depleted during 18 months of fighting in Ukraine.
On Tuesday, Peskov dismissed US warnings on any arms deal, with Russian news agencies quoting him as saying: “As you know, while implementing our relations with our neighbours, including North Korea, the interests of our two countries are important to us, and not warnings from Washington.
“It is the interests of our two countries that we will focus on.”
Read our full report:
Key events
So far Vladimir Putin’s speech in Vladivostok at the eastern economic forum has almost exclusively focused on statistics and boasts of strategic investment in the region.
Reuters reports that Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has officially confirmed that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has arrived in Russia, reiterating earlier reports. It cited the Interfax news agency.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is currently addressing an economic forum in the far east of the country. We will bring you any key lines that emerge.
Russia has “recalibrated” its missile defences around Moscow as it faces near daily drone attacks, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said in its latest intelligence update.
As well as being aimed at improving its defences, the changes are likely also meant as a “high-profile reassurance” to the public, the MoD said.
According to a Reuters source, Kim Jong-un briefly got off his train at the Russian border station of Khasan to meet local officials.
Kyiv carried out a drone strike on the city of Enerhodar near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant on Monday, Alexei Likhachev, the head of Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom, said on Tuesday, Reuters has reported citing Russia’s Ria news agency.
Likhachev said six drones were launched at the city, and all were destroyed.
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine. Reuters could not independently verify the report.
Reuters has put together this list of officials who may be accompanying Kim Jong-un on his journey to Russia. It’s a mix of defence and economic officials and diplomats, which suggest Kim may be looking to discuss economic cooperation and food aid in return for weapons.
Defence leaders
Ri Pyong Chol, vice chairman of the ruling Workers’ Party’s powerful Central Military Commission and marshal of the army, the country’s top military rank, was seen waving alongside Kim aboard the train. Overseeing North Korea’s defence industry including its nuclear and missile programmes, Ri travelled to Russia with Kim’s late father, Kim Jong Il, in 2011.
Among other delegates were Marshal Pak Jong Chon, new head of the party’s military political leadership; Pak Thae Song, a party secretary and chairman of a national space science and technology committee involved in a spy satellite program; and Jo Chun Ryong, director of the Munitions Industry Department, who assisted Kim during his recent visits to a munitions factory and missile plant.
Defence minister Kang Sun Nam is also likely to have gone on the trip to Russia, according to Michael Madden, a North Korea leadership expert at the Washington-based Stimson Center, though his face was not clearly identified in the photos.
Power players
Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui also shook hands with other officials in a receiving line at the train station. A longtime nuclear negotiator and seasoned diplomat, Choe was instrumental during Kim’s summits with former US president Donald Trump, and promoted to the current position last year after a brief demotion following their failed 2019 summit in Vietnam.
Kim’s powerful sister and a senior party official, Kim Yo Jong, was seen standing beside the train, though it was unclear whether she boarded.
Economic officials
These included O Su Yong, a party secretary and director of the economy department; Pak Hun, vice premier of the cabinet responsible for construction; and Han Kwang Sang, chief of the party’s light industry department.
Former Austrian foreign minister Karin Kneissl, who famously danced with Vladimir Putin at her wedding, will move to St Petersburg to work at an academic centre there which she heads, the Russian Tass state news agency has reported.
Kneissl heads the Gorki centre – the Geopolitical Observatory for Russia’s Key Issues at St Petersburg University, Tass reported.
“I co-founded the Gorki center and manage it,” Tass quoted Kneissl as saying. “Since there is a lot of work there and it requires a lot of attention, I cannot do this in passing, I decided to move to St. Petersburg for this work.”
In a previous report last month, Tass said the ex-minister was holidaying in the village of Petrushovo in the Ryazan region. It also quoted her as saying in June that she was “seriously considering moving to Russia.”
Ukraine recaptures strategic oil rigs near Crimea
Ukraine has recaptured several Black Sea oil and gas rigs that were seized by Russia in 2015, the country’s military intelligence service (GUR) has said.
In a statement on the Telegram messaging app on Monday, the GUR said that Kyiv’s forces had retaken the drilling platforms known as the “Boyko Towers” near the occupied Crimean peninsula in a “unique operation” and that their capture was of “strategic importance”.
“Russia has been deprived of the ability to fully control the waters of the Black Sea, and this makes Ukraine many steps closer to regaining Crimea,” it said.
It was not possible to verify the report.
During the operation, GUR said, there was a clash between Ukrainian special forces on boats and a Russian fighter jet, which was damaged and forced to retreat.
GUR also captured other “valuable trophies” such as helicopter munitions and a radar system that can track the movement of ships in the Black Sea, it said.
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Photos have been coming through on the wires of a train that resembles Kim Jong-un’s – green with yellow trimmings – near Khasan, on the border between Russia, North Korea and China. Khasan is about 130km south of Vladivostok, where Kim is expected to meet Vladimir Putin.
If you’ve ever wondered what it was like on board Kim Jong-un’s armoured train, the Guardian’s Justin McCurry has some answers and they involve pink leather chairs and singers known as “lady conductors”. Here’s an extract:
Kim does not reportedly share the fear of flying that forced his father, Kim Jong-il, to travel long distances exclusively by rail – he flew to his 2018 summit in Singapore with Donald Trump and to a meeting with the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, the same year in the Chinese city of Dalian.
But the armoured train, which includes bedrooms and a meeting room fitted out with wall-mounted lighting, dark wood panelling and reddish-pink leather armchairs, appears to be Kim’s preferred mode of transport. It took him 4,500 km through China for his second summit with Trump, in Hanoi in 2019 – a journey that lasted two-and-a-half days.
Only a select few have seen the inside, including a Russian official, Konstantin Pulikovsky, who in his book Orient Express recounted fine-dining menus during a trip across Russia’s Far East with Kim Jong-il.
Passengers could choose from an eclectic range of dishes, including those from Korea and Japan, and a wine list that included Bordeaux and Burgundy, Pulikovsky wrote, adding that entertainment was provided by young female singers referred to as “lady conductors”.
Kim Jong-Un arrives in Russia for talks on expected arms deal with Putin
Justin McCurry
Kim Jong-un has arrived in Russia for a rare summit with president Vladimir Putin to discuss a possible deal to supply North Korean arms for the war in Ukraine.
Kim’s armoured train arrived at Khasan station, the main rail gateway to Russia’s Far East from North Korea, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported on Tuesday, citing an unnamed Russian official source.
The meeting is expected to be held on Tuesday afternoon on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum in the Russian port city of Vladivostok, where Putin has already arrived.
Kim’s trip to Russia and meeting with Putin will be a full-scale visit to strengthen ties, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in a video posted online.
The meeting comes amid concerns in the west that Pyongyang plans to provide weapons to Moscow to replace stocks that have been heavily depleted during 18 months of fighting in Ukraine.
On Tuesday, Peskov dismissed US warnings on any arms deal, with Russian news agencies quoting him as saying: “As you know, while implementing our relations with our neighbours, including North Korea, the interests of our two countries are important to us, and not warnings from Washington.
“It is the interests of our two countries that we will focus on.”
Read our full report:
Opening summary
Good morning and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine with me, Helen Livingstone.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is expected to discuss an arms deal with president Vladimir Putin after arriving in the far east of Russia on his armoured train. The US has warned that any such agreement would violate UN Security Council resolutions and that it would respond with fresh sanctions.
It also said the meeting, during a rare trip abroad for Kim, indicated that Putin was desperate over the Ukraine conflict.
“Having to travel across the length of his own country to meet with an international pariah to ask for assistance in a war that he expected to win in the opening month, I would characterise it as him begging for assistance,” state department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.
In other developments:
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The Ukrainian military said it had recaptured strategic Black Sea gas and oil drilling platforms, the so-called Boyko Towers, that were seized by Russia in 2015. “Russia has been deprived of the ability to fully control the waters of the Black Sea, and this makes Ukraine many steps closer to regaining Crimea,” the Main Intelligence Directorate said.
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Ukraine said its troops had regained more territory on the eastern and southern fronts in the past week of its counteroffensive. Deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar said in televised comments that Ukraine had retaken nearly 2 square km (0.77 square mile) of land around the eastern city of Bakhmut, captured by Russia in May. She later added on the Telegram messaging app that the Ukrainian army had in the past week also recaptured 4.8 square km in the southern Tavria sector.
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The Biden administration is close to approving the shipment of longer-range missiles packed with cluster bombs to Ukraine, giving Kyiv the ability to cause significant damage deeper within Russian-occupied territory, Reuters reported citing four US officials.
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The “decision-making process in Germany is moving forward” regarding the supply of Taurus missiles to Kyiv, president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said after a meeting with the country’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock. Earlier on Monday, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, had urged Berlin to send Taurus missiles to Ukraine as soon as possible.
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Baerbock said Ukraine’s place was in the EU during her unannounced visit to Kyiv on Monday morning. Ukraine can “rely on us and on our understanding of EU enlargement as a necessary geopolitical consequence of Russia’s war,” Baerbock said upon arrival. Ukraine already has candidate status, said Baerbock. “And now we are preparing to take a decision on opening EU accession talks.”
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Russia’s Central Election Commission said that the country’s ruling party had won the most votes in elections held in occupied Ukrainian regions, as Kyiv and the west denounced the ballots as a sham. The votes in Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia and on the Crimean peninsula were held as Russian authorities attempt to tighten their grip on territories Moscow illegally annexed a year ago and still does not fully control.
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Russia’s military targeted a civilian cargo ship in the Black Sea with “multiple missiles” last month but they were successfully intercepted by Ukrainian forces, Britain said citing intelligence. A vessel in Russia’s Black Sea fleet fired the missiles, which included two Kalibr cruise missiles, towards the southern Ukrainian port of Odessa on 24 August, according to the UK government.
