Russian President Vladimir Putin has landed in North Korea as he praised the pariah state’s dictator Kim Jong-un as his “comrade”.
Putin arrived in Pyongyang on Tuesday for a key summit set to deepen trade and security ties intended to offset sanctions placed on the two regimes by the United States.
In an article published by North Korean state media, Putin praised “Comrade” Kim, and promised to “jointly resist illegitimate unilateral restrictions” by Washington.
“Washington, refusing to implement previously reached agreements, continuously puts forward new, increasingly stringent and obviously unacceptable demands,” Putin said in the article published by Rodong Sinmun, Kim’s ruling mouthpiece.
Meanwhile, the US and its Asian allies are trying to work out how far Russia will go in support of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, whose country is the only one to have conducted nuclear weapon tests in the 21st century.
It came as Ukraine has been systematically targeting Russian energy infrastructure to try to disrupt Russia’s economy and its ability to fund its military effort. On Tuesday a drone attack set ablaze oil storage sites in Russia’s southern Rostov region.