What Does Putin’s North Korea Visit Mean Geopolitically?
Summary from the AllSides News Team
Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Pyongyang, North Korea this week and signed a bilateral security pact with Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un, drawing media perspectives.
Not A Big Deal: Charlie Campbell of TIME Magazine (Lean Left bias) noted that Putin’s “budding ties” with North Korea “may risk fissures” with its most important ally at the moment, China. Campbell said China “only tolerates North Korea’s existence” because it fears a “unified U.S.-allied Korean peninsula on its border, and concluded that the new pact won’t have a “meaningful” impact but could backfire if “Beijing gets peeved.”
Quick Progress: A report from The Wall Street Journal (Center bias) cited U.S. intelligence officials and analysts as surprised by Russia’s “speed and depth of the expanding security ties involving the U.S. adversaries.” The Journal noted that Russia’s relationship with nations like Iran, China, and North Korea hasn’t yet amounted to a proper military alliance formidable to NATO but has culminated in a series of bilateral exchanges that a former CIA and White House official has described as “a marriage of convenience.”
New Low: The editorial board of The Telegraph - UK (Lean Right bias) wrote that Putin is not the “big player” in the region and that it is ultimately Chinese President Xi Jinping who calls the shots. The Telegraph wrote that Putin “may try to present himself as a major world figure; but fawning to the leader of such an odious regime merely diminishes” his standing on the world stage.
Featured Coverage of this Story
From the Right
Putin has been diminished
Vladimir Putin’s journey to Pyongyang to meet fellow dictator Kim Jong-un is emblematic of the Russian leader’s isolation. Just 10 years ago, he was attending meetings of the G8 (now the G7) and rubbing shoulders with the leaders of the world’s richest nations. Now he has to go cap in hand to the pariah state of North Korea to seek both support for his war in Ukraine and the weapons to pursue it.
The old Soviet Union nurtured a partnership with North Korea, but modern Russia had kept this weird dynastic despotism at...
From the Center
How Putin Rebuilt Russia’s War Machine With Help From U.S. Adversaries
Russia’s military cooperation with Iran, North Korea and China has expanded into the sharing of sensitive technologies that could threaten the U.S. and its allies long after the Ukraine war ends, according to U.S. defense and intelligence officials.
The speed and depth of the expanding security ties involving the U.S. adversaries has at times surprised American intelligence analysts. Russia and the other nations have set aside historic frictions to collectively counter what they regard as a U.S.-dominated global system, they said.
In a sign of the closer military relations, Russian President Vladimir...
From the Left
Vladimir Putin’s Trip to North Korea Reeks of Desperation, Not Strength
It must be somebody pretty important in your life to warrant a personal airport pickup at 3 a.m. But that’s the honor North Korean “Supreme Leader” Kim Jong Un paid to Vladimir Putin on Wednesday morning, greeting the Russian President on a red carpet-laid runway in the wee hours and then riding with him through Pyongyang streets festooned with roses and murals of his stout, balding guest, whom Kim had earlier hailed as an “invincible comrade-in-arms.”
The last time Putin visited North Korea, it was his first year as Russian President and Kim was...
AllSides Picks
June 28th, 2024
June 30th, 2024
June 28th, 2024
More News about Russia from the Left, Center and Right
From the Left
From the Center
From the Right
