After a long time, the Kremlin ruler visited Pyongyang again. The meeting was about business and a “comprehensive strategic partnership”. The two countries can be more useful to each other than ever before, especially in the field of armaments.
They stood there quietly in front of a mural depicting waves whipping and forming white foam crests: North Korea’s ruler Kim Jong-il and his guest Vladimir Putin, who was 24 years younger at the time and had only been in the Kremlin for half a year. Putin and the father of the current dictator revived an old friendship in Pyongyang in the summer of 2000, but after that Putin was not seen in North Korea for almost a quarter of a century. The Kremlin chief was able to travel all over the world, so there was little time for North Korea, and its importance for Russia did not make a visit necessary. All of that is different now.