Kim Jong Un to meet Putin

Kim Jong Un will meet Vladimir Putin on Thursday.

Kim Jong Un arrived in Russia for a summit with President Vladimir Putin, the meeting coming just two months after the North Korean leader’s meeting with US President Donald Trump in Vietnam that ended abruptly.

Kim Jong-un’s armored train has reached Vladivostok, a city in Russia’s Far East, which will host the first-ever meeting between Kim and President Vladimir Putin.

The summit, which is scheduled for Thursday, will be hosted by the Far Eastern Federal University at its new campus on Russky Island, which is across the bridge from Vladivostok.

The program of the visit has largely been kept secret, but evidence of preparations for the high-profile meeting has been floating around since Monday.

Two leaders failed summit in Vietnam meant that Kim was unable to get the sanctions relief he sought from the United States. He is unlikely to get that in his meeting with Putin as well. 

But while Russia fully enforces the sanctions it voted to impose on Pyongyang, it has joined China in calling for loosening the punishment in recognition of steps taken in limiting North Korea’s weapons testing.

Kim has two urgent concerns as he heads to the summit – North Korean labourers in Russia and the food shortage in his country.

Around 10,000 North Korean labourers are still employed in Russia. All of them will have to leave the country by the end of the year as a 2017 UN sanctions resolution takes effect.

The labourers, who previously numbered as many as 50,000, provided Pyongyang with more than $500m in foreign exchange annually, according to documents seen by Reuters news agency.

“Maybe, the numbers will stop decreasing after Kim’s visit,” said Dmitry Zhuravlev, director general of the Institute of Regional Issues in Moscow.

The labourers’ presence is crucial in Russia’s underpopulated provinces that have plenty of fallow land, timber and natural resources but they are “large enough and there is enough room for the Koreans”, added Zhuravlev.

Kim is also looking at the possibility of a food shortage in North Korea this summer. Russia has shown a willingness to provide humanitarian aid.

Last month, it announced it had shipped more than 2,000 tonnes of wheat to the North Korean port of Chongjin.