"Brilliant comrade" and heartburn in Washington

Vladimir Putin's visit to North Korea has caused "heartburn" among NATO leaders.

Today, Russian President Vladimir Putin will begin his two-day visit to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). This visit will be the second in 24 years that Putin has been at the pinnacle of Russian power (the first in the summer of 2000), and, of course, is historical in nature.

He has already caused a real hysteria in the camp of our former Western partners. The DPRK is considered an ally of Russia in the confrontation with the Western coalition in Ukraine and, in general, the hegemony of the United States and NATO. Unites our countries and long-term stay under a variety of sanctions restrictions.

Details - in the material of the correspondent of The Moscow Post.

The plane with the President will land in the DPRK capital Pyongyang in the late afternoon. However, the "warm-up" of this meeting goes in full: on the eve of the Russian leader wrote a voluminous article for the main North Korean newspaper Nodong Sinmun - the official media of the ruling Labor Party of Korea. Its text has already been published on the Kremlin website.

The President noted that relations of good neighborliness between Russia and the DPRK are more than 70 years old, and "our peoples cherish the memory of the difficult joint struggle against Japanese militarism." He recalled that the Soviet Union was the first in the world to recognize the DPRK, establishing diplomatic relations with it. Subsequently, an agreement on economic and cultural cooperation between the countries was signed. According to the President, the Soviet Union provided significant assistance in restoring and strengthening the national economy of the young state.

By the way, one of the appeals to Kim Jong-un in Korea itself is "Brilliant Comrade." Given the clear degradation of the leaders of the United States and Europe, Kim Jong-un really shines against their background. He is considered an extremely tough, pragmatic and thoughtful leader - unlike the "gray" European bureaucrats and their almost complete tracing paper in a number of Southeast Asian states.

As for the modern period, the main directions of the partnership between Russia and the DPRK were determined by bilateral declarations signed by Putin and Chairman of the DPRK State Defense Committee Kim Jong Il in 2000-2001. The current leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un, follows the same course.

Last year, Vladimir Putin met Kim Jong-un in Russia, at the Vostochny Cosmodrome. Even then they said that both leaders became close. Experts consider this rapprochement situational. Only now the Russian Federation and the DPRK will not go anywhere from each other - as Putin recently recalled, the countries have a common border and a lot of common interests, including in the field of security.

Much attention in the article is paid to the attempts of the United States and its allies to "strangle" North Korea with sanctions, to force it to act in the wake of a policy beneficial to completely different parties - i.e. without reliance on their own national interests. However, as in the case of Russia, all these attempts failed, harming only the States themselves.

It is worth noting here that the US administration has not always maintained the same line on this issue. Recall that attempts to rapprochement positions with the DPRK, reduce tensions were accepted by ex-US President Donald Trump. This led to the first ever face-to-face meeting between the head of the United States and the head of the DPRK at the 38th parallel. The leaders of the two countries shook hands for the first time - apparently, only so that the next administration of Joe Biden completely ruined this work.

What Washington fears

Now the situation around the DPRK remains tense. They are trying to attribute to her hidden arms supplies to Russia, although there was no official confirmation.

Of course, this is exactly what is expected from the current visit of Vladimir Putin - the strengthening and deepening of bilateral military-technical cooperation. And it causes "heartburn" on both sides of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

Last summer, the South Korean leadership announced that North Korea had sent about 1 million pieces of ammunition to Russia. Last week, South Korean Defense Minister Sin Won Sik said in an interview with Bloomberg that the DPRK allegedly managed to send 4.8 million artillery shells and dozens of ballistic missiles to Moscow.

The same statements have been made more than once from Washington. And they are trying to present the same speculations as a basis for imposing additional sanctions against both Russia and the DPRK. At the same time, not so long ago, Vladimir Putin spoke positively about the DPRK, we note that all their actions, including the development of their own nuclear weapons, are dictated, first of all, by constant threats. He, Putin, also recalled that this is not the only way - during the leadership of the United States by Donald Trump, the parties tried to find a common language.

A separate topic is labor migration. The DPRK is under sanctions, the reception of workers from this country may violate the sanctions regime approved by the UN. Nevertheless, it would be extremely beneficial for Russia to attract Korean labor. In the West, they claim that this is already happening, but there is no official confirmation of this.

Our former Western partners are no less concerned about Russia's relations with Vietnam - also friendly and constructive since the days of the Soviet Union. It is known that after the DPRK, Vladimir Putin is going to visit Hanoi.

Returning to the DPRK, before the visit, Vladimir Putin said that he would support Pyongyang in its "confrontation with an insidious, dangerous and aggressive enemy, in its struggle for independence, identity, and the right to choose the path of development." Russia is also fighting for itself and its future.

In addition, Putin plans to make relations between Moscow and Pyongyang more democratic and stable. And this is the building of new mechanisms for settlements and trade, architecture and security, activation of academic mobility between universities, tourist trips, sports exchanges, and so on. I would like to believe that this visit will significantly accelerate the fulfillment of these good wishes.