Kim and Putin will spend almost the entire day “at the negotiating table in various formats”, Russian news agency Tass reports. It quotes Putin aide Yury Ushakov as saying that the trip shows Russia is open to cooperation with all countries “despite all attempts of collective the west to put pressure on us.””
Ushakov “drew special attention to the fact that Korean friends show an understanding of the real causes and essence of the Ukrainian crisis,” Tass continued, writing: “Moscow appreciates this”.
The negotiations will pay “significant attention” to the international agenda, Tass wrote, adding:
It is important that the approaches of the two countries to current foreign policy problems are very close or completely coincide.
Several joint documents are set to be signed and Ushakov did not rule out that one of them could be a new comprehensive strategic partnership treaty, replacing previous agreements dating from 1961, 2000 and 2001, and which would broaden cooperation, Tass reported.
Asked whether the document would include military-technical cooperation and military assistance, Ushakov reportedly answered:
It will outline the prospects for further cooperation and will be signed, naturally, taking into account what has happened between the countries in recent years in the field of international politics, both in the economic sphere and in the sphere of relations along all lines, including taking into account security issues..
Updated at 02.44 BST
In an analysis of what North Korea wants from Putin’s visit, Rachel Minyoung Lee, a senior fellow at 38 North, a Washington-based think tank focusing on North Korea, suggests the country may have longer-term economic goals in sight. She writes:
It is almost certainly not a coincidence that since June 2023, just as North Korea was aligning itself more closely with Russia, there has been a significant uptick in state media coverage of moves by BRICs and Russia to explore alternative economic arrangements that do not require the US dollar.
Historically, one of the main reasons North Korea has pursued improved relations with Washington was to broker sanctions relief and regain access to the international financial system.
If Pyongyang views Russia as a viable longer-term partner for improving its economy – as irrational as this may seem to some – there is even less of an incentive for it to try to improve relations with the United States.
Updated at 02.24 BST
Here are some of the best images that have come to us over the wires so far from Putin’s trip to Pyongyang:
Updated at 02.03 BST
Relations between Moscow and Pyongyang a ‘strong, strategic fortress’, North Korean media says
Pyongyang has hailed its relations with Moscow as a “strong, strategic fortress” as Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived on a state visit, his first trip to North Korea in almost 25 years.
State-run news wire KCNA said the relationship was “an engine for accelerating the building of a new multi-polar world,” and demonstrated “invincibility and durability”.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un greeted Putin at the airport in the early hours of Wednesday morning, and rode with him in a motorcade to his accommodation, KCNA reported.
It said that on the journey the pair “exchanged their pent-up inmost thoughts and opened their minds” to how they could further develop their relationship.
Wednesday’s agenda includes further one-on-one discussions between the two leaders, as well as a gala concert, state reception, honour guards, document signings and a statement to the media, Russia’s Interfax news agency quoted Putin’s foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov as saying.
Ties between the neighbours have deepened since Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with Pyongyang believed to have provided weapons in return for food and energy aid as well as support with its space and missile programmes.
Russia and North Korea have denied striking any agreement on weapons transfers during a trip by Kim to Russia last year.
Updated at 01.43 BST
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine and today’s visit by Vladimir Putin to North Korea, where he is expected to seek further military support.
Relations between North Korea and Russia have “emerged as a strong strategic fortress” at a “crucial time”, North Korean state media has said as the Russian president arrived in Pyongyang for his first visit since 2000.
Putin was greeted by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in the early hours of Wednesday morning “in an exciting atmosphere”, KCNA news wire reported in typically flowery language. Kim then escorted Putin to his accommodation.
Ties between the two countries have strengthened significantly since Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, with Kim believed to have supplied arms to Russia in return for food and energy aid and help with his country’s space programme.
Here are the key developments:
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Putin praised North Korea for “firmly supporting” Moscow’s war in Ukraine, in an article published in the Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper of the ruling Workers’ party, on Tuesday. “We highly appreciate that [North Korea] is firmly supporting the special military operations of Russia being conducted in Ukraine,” the Russian leader wrote.
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The Russian leader also commended Kim for defying UN security council sanctions – measures that were supported by Moscow until recently – targeting his regime’s nuclear ambitions. Pyongyang had defended its interests “very effectively, despite the US economic pressure, provocation, blackmail and military threats that have lasted for decades”, Putin wrote.
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The US voiced concern that the visit could have security implications for Ukraine and the Korean peninsula, which has been shaken in recent days by friction along the heavily armed border that has separated North from South since the end of the 1950-53 Korean war. “We know North Korean ballistic missiles are still being used to hit Ukrainian targets (and) there could be some reciprocity here that could affect security on the Korean peninsula,” the US national security council spokesperson, John Kirby, told reporters.
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Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said Putin’s trip showed he was “dependent” on authoritarian leaders. “Their closest friends and the biggest supporters of the Russian war effort – war of aggression – [are] North Korea, Iran and China,” he said.
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A Kazkah opposition figure and prominent blogger with more than 1 million subscribers on YouTube has been seriously wounded in an attempted killing in Kyiv. Aydos Sadykov, who was granted asylum in Ukraine in 2014, was shot near his home and taken to hospital in a “serious condition”, his wife, Natalia Sadykova, said.
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Ukrainian officials have already started preparatory work to organise a second peace summit, the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak said on Tuesday, after the first conference led by Ukraine was held last weekend in Switzerland. A summit hosted by Switzerland over the weekend saw over 90 countries attend, but Ukraine and its allies failed to persuade major non-aligned states to join their final statement, and no country came forward to host a sequel.
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Ukraine claimed responsibility for an overnight drone attack on an oil facility in Russia’s Rostov region that started a massive blaze in the latest long-range strike by Kyiv’s forces on a border region.
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Kyiv on Tuesday accused Russian forces of beheading a Ukrainian serviceman in the eastern Donetsk region, the latest allegation of abuse levied by Ukrainian prosecutors against Moscow. “While conducting aerial reconnaissance at one of the combat positions in the Donetsk region, the Ukrainian military discovered a damaged armoured vehicle of the Ukrainian Defence Forces. It contained the severed head of a Ukrainian defender,” the office of Ukraine’s prosecutor general posted on social media.
Updated at 01.31 BST
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