After crossing the border, the mystery train continues its journey to Russia, while half the world wonders where its journey will stop. That is, where and when Kim Jong Unwho is on board, will meet Vladimir Putin. What is certain is only that the convoy with the North Korean leader passed through the Chasan station, in Russian territory near the border, where he was welcomed by the Minister of Natural Resources Alexander Kozlov. Where he then went is unknown, but according to some foreign media, such as the Japanese Kyodo agency which cites “sources close to the Russian authorities”, he resumed his journey to the Vostochny cosmodrome, where the summit could take place. The base is located in the Amur region, a thousand kilometers north of Vladivostok, where at first the meeting seemed to take place.
In Vladivostok, however, today only Putin was seen, who in a speech and then a lengthy interview at the Eastern Economic Forum reiterated all of Russia’s accusations and recriminations towards the West, also taking inspiration from a question on the Soviet invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia. “We have long recognized that this part of the policy of the Soviet Union was wrong,” said the Russian head of state, responding to statements by the authorities of the Czech Republic and Hungary according to which “the USSR behaved like a colonialist country” . But it is precisely this line that “the main Western countries, and especially the USA” are now following, Putin denounced. “The United States is putting pressure on their allies, on their partners”, because “they have no friends, they only have interests”, added the head of the Kremlin, who then also had a comment on Donald Trump’s legal troubles: only “a persecution for political reasons”, he said, however rejecting as “nonsense” the rumors about alleged preferential relations between the former president and Moscow.
Putin then returned to announce – as he has done many times – that his country is working on the development of weapons “based on new physical principles». As laser, ultrasonic and radio frequency weapons, explained the Tass agency. There has been much discussion about the agreements that Putin and Kim could sign in their meeting in the Russian Far East. The US fears that Pyongyang will supply ammunition to Moscow to bolster its arsenals in the conflict in Ukraine. The independent Russian newspaper Nezavisimaia Gazeta goes into detail, citing one of its sources according to which North Korea will make Soviet caliber projectiles available to Moscow – 122 mm and 152 mm – compatible with Russian artillery pieces. The supply of D-30 light howitzers is also under discussion, but not missiles, the source adds. A question that worries Western governments and analysts is what Pyongyang will receive in return. In recent days the New York Times had hypothesized the provision by Moscow not only of financial and food aid but also of technology that would be used by the North Korean regime to develop its program for putting satellites into orbit and for the construction of submarines nuclear propulsion. In short, North Korea would aim to develop as a military power capable of influencing the balance of the Asia-Pacific. Ambitions that would also emerge from the high military-industrial profile of the delegation following Kim. According to the Reuters agency, accompanying the leader would be, among other things, Ri Pyong Chol, deputy head of the central military commission of the Workers’ Party, which also supervises the nuclear and missile programs. And then General Pak Jong Chon, new head of the party’s military leadership, Pak Thae Song, president of the National Commission for Space and Science, involved in a spy satellite program, and Jo Chun Ryong, director of the Department of munitions industry, who accompanied Kim during recent visits to munitions and missile factories. Defense Minister Kang Sun Nam should also be part of the North Korean delegation, but not the leader’s powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, according to what Ria Novosti writes. “Kim Jong-un – underlines the agency – arrived in Russia without his wife, daughter and sister, and is accompanied by only one woman: Foreign Minister Choi Song Hui”.