North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s visit to Russia in the coming days to meet with Vladimir Putin could provide clues about Pyongyang’s increased military aid to Moscow for its war in Ukraine, as well as signs of a reset in relations between the two regimes, Reuters writes.

On Monday, the Kremlin officially announced that Putin had invited Kim to Russia for talks and that the North Korean leader had accepted, and Dmitry Peskov confirmed the information that first appeared in the American press and then in South Korea.

This will be only Kim’s second official visit to Russia and his first trip abroad since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Reuters notes that if the North Korean leader is traveling with a delegation of generals, that would likely be the strongest indication of the nature of the talks to take place. It will also be interesting to see which other Russian officials Kim Jong-un will meet with, apart from Putin, considering that at the end of July, the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation Sergei Shoigu was received in Pyongyang.

The United States has raised concerns about what Washington says are increasingly advanced arms talks, with White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan urging Kim “not to give Russia weapons that reach to kill Ukrainians.”

North Korea was one of three countries in the world to recognize the independence claims of pro-Russian separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions last summer, before Moscow officially announced their annexation in September.

The other two countries were Bashar al-Assad’s Syria, which Moscow helped to keep in power with military means, and Russia itself.

The United States has accused North Korea of ​​supplying Russia with weapons for its war in Ukraine, but the volume of supplies remains unclear. Both Moscow and Pyongyang deny this, but talk about expanding military cooperation.

What could Putin ask Kim Jong-un for?

Analysts say the Kim regime has vast stockpiles of artillery shells, missiles and small arms ammunition, all of which could help Russia’s military after its own stockpiles have dwindled sharply after 18 months of war.

However, a question mark remains regarding the quality of North Korean weapons.

North Korea’s workforce could be another topic of interest to Russia as it faces unprecedentedly low unemployment, which affects its military production capacity.

Before the UN banned the use of North Korean labor in successive resolutions in 2019, Russia is believed to have hosted nearly 20,000 North Korean workers on its territory.

Russia can offer North Korea grain, oil and military technology in return, while Pyongyang seeks to develop nuclear submarines and military satellites.

The Hwasong-18, North Korea’s latest intercontinental ballistic missile and the first to use solid fuel, has raised new suspicions that Moscow may be helping Pyongyang with its nuclear weapons program.

Kim may ask Vladimir Putin to lift sanctions

The UN Security Council has been divided for years over how to deal with Pyongyang’s nuclear program. Russia and China, Kim’s allies, say the new sanctions won’t help and are pushing to loosen existing ones.

Whatever is decided in the bilateral meeting between Putin and Kim Jong-un, it is a sign of the mutual support the two countries are giving each other, as both now face significant sanctions and pressure from the international community.

After his first face-to-face meeting with Kim Jong-un in 2019, Putin said security guarantees offered by the US were unlikely to convince Pyongyang to give up its nuclear program.

Then Putin called the North Korean leader “quite receptive”, “observant” and “interesting”.

The 2019 meeting marked a turning point in relations between the two leaders, as North Korea’s new supreme leader had relatively cool relations with Russia and China, the acceding countries, in the early years after succeeding his father Kim Jong Il in 2011. The US has imposed tough sanctions against Pyongyang over its nuclear tests.

The meeting of the two leaders in Russia may also have less ordinary moments

Reuters notes that both Putin and Kim know how to attract the attention of the international media. When they met in 2019, the two leaders attended a gala dinner where they bumped into each other and watched representatives dance to traditional Russian music.

The two leaders also exchanged gifts. Kim presented Putin with a traditional Korean saber, while the Kremlin leader presented his Pyongyang counterpart with a sword and a tea set for use in his armored train.

Kim’s trips abroad have occasionally provided moments when he appears more relaxed than when he is in the country, and his appearances have been covered with particular attention by Pyongyang’s state media.

For example, during a bilateral meeting with former US President Donald Trump in Hanoi in 2019, Kim Jong Un spoke to foreign journalists for the first time during a photo shoot.

The summit was also the first time Kim publicly showed Kim Yo Jong, his sister, who has since come to play an important role in the Pyongyang regime.

Footage taken at the time shows the North Korean leader taking a smoke break at a train station in the Chinese city of Nanning when Yo Jong approaches him to bring him a crystal ashtray.

A year earlier, at the 2018 inter-Korean summit, 12 of Kim’s bodyguards drew global media attention after wearing black suits surrounded the North Korean leader’s Mercedes-Benz limousine and ran at his feet.