2023-09-15 13:34:48
The rarely traveled Kim Jong-un, who arrived in Russia on Tuesday, continues his official visit, and is this Friday morning in the city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur, in the Russian Far East. He was awaited by the regional governor and other officials on a red carpet at the city’s train station, located on the banks of the long river that runs through Siberia and marks part of the border between Russia and China.
“In accordance with Russian tradition for distinguished guests, Kim was welcomed with bread and salt,” writes the Russian news agency TASS. The North Korean leader was then taken to the Komsomolsk aircraft factory, where Sukhoi warplanes and other equipment are produced, the agency reported, and then to the second factory, dedicated to civilian aircraft.
“No agreement has been signed, and there were no plans to sign any,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.
The United States suspected Russia of wanting to buy weapons from Pyongyang, in particular 122 mm caliber rockets, which equip Russian forces in Ukraine. In exchange, North Korea could obtain Russian oil, food goods, technologies for its nuclear and missile programs, and even access space technologies.
Large stocks of Soviet equipment in North Korea
After turning to Iran to deliver hundreds of explosive drones, Russia could indeed find useful resources from Pyongyang, which has large stocks of Soviet equipment and mass produces conventional weapons .
Kim, accompanied by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov and uniformed North Korean military officials, was shown on Russian state television carefully inspecting the cockpit of a fighter jet as Russian officials explained its capabilities via a translator. He then inspected the workshops where fuselage compartments and wings are manufactured.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits an aircraft manufacturing plant in the city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur, September 15, 2023. Courtesy Governor of Russia’s Khabarovsk Krai Mikhail Degtyarev Telegram Channel via REUTERS
With gestures of approval, Kim watched a demonstration flight of the Su-35 fighter jet, one of Russia’s most modern models, manufactured in Komsomolsk-on-Amur and exported in numerous countries. The factory also manufactures Su-57s and civilian aircraft.
“We resist together the pressure of the collective West”
Regional Governor Mikhail Degtyarev wrote on the messaging app Telegram that Kim had seen facilities producing parts for military planes as well as the Superjet-100 civilian plane, which Russia aims to produce at another factory in the city, without imported components.
“Our fathers and grandfathers fought together against Japanese militarism, our country supported North Korea in its fight against the imperialist ambitions of the United States in the 1950s, and today we together resist the pressure of the collective West,” Degtyarev said.
On Wednesday, during his first official trip abroad since the Covid pandemic, the North Korean leader met Vladimir Putin at the Vostochny cosmodrome (East), with the aim of displaying the links between their two countries, especially military. The two leaders mutually offered each other a rifle as a shining token of their alliance.
Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un should meet again soon, the Russian president having accepted “with pleasure” his counterpart’s invitation to visit North Korea, according to Dmitri Peskov. However, no date has been communicated.
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