North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was to travel to the far eastern port city of Vladivostok to see Russia’s Pacific fleet, while his official media back home said on Saturday that he was “deeply impressed” by a factory producing the most advanced Russian warplanes.
North Korea’s leader reappeared Friday in the far eastern city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur for a visit to a plant producing Russia’s Su-57 fighter jets.
Experts have said potential military cooperation between the countries could include efforts to modernize North Korea’s outdated air force, which relies on warplanes sent from the Soviet Union in the 1980s.
Kim’s plans to see Russian naval ships in Vladivostok could be another hint at what he wants from Russia, possibly in exchange for supplying munitions to refill Putin’s declining reserves as his invasion of Ukraine becomes a drawn-out war of attrition.
Kim in recent months has emphasized the need to strengthen his navy to counter the advanced naval assets of the United States, which has been expanding its combined military exercises with South Korea to counter the North’s growing threat. Analysts say Kim’s focus on naval strength could be driven by ambitions to obtain sophisticated technologies for ballistic missile submarines and nuclear-propelled submarines as well as to initiate joint naval exercises between Russia and North Korea.
