Meet Kim Jong-un, Putin Visits North Korea June 18-19

President Putin welcomes North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (DOK: Vladimir Smirnov/TASS)

JAKARTA - Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit North Korea on Tuesday and Wednesday this week, the Kremlin said.

This visit is considered a very rare trip and underscores the development of Moscow's partnership with the closed nuclear armed nation.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un invited Putin during a visit to Russia in September 2023. Putin has not visited Pyongyang since July 2000.

"At the invitation of the Chairman of Foreign Affairs of the DPRK, Kim Jong Un, Vladimir Putin will make a friendly state visit to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea on June 18-19," the Kremlin said.

After North Korea, Putin will visit Vietnam on June 19-20, the Kremlin said.

Russia is trying hard to show the resurgence of its relations with North Korea since the start of the war in Ukraine, which has sparked the biggest crisis in more than 60 years in Moscow's relations with the West.

For Putin, who said Russia was involved in a fierce battle with the West over Ukraine, a approach to Kim allowed him to attack Washington and its allies in Asia while securing large amounts of artillery supplies for the war in Ukraine.