RUSSIA – Vladimir Putin is set to travel to North Korea for a two-day visit starting Tuesday, the Kremlin said, in the Russian president’s first trip to the country in more than two decades – and the latest sign of a deepening alignment that’s raised widespread international concern.

This is a rare overseas trip for Putin since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022 and a key moment for North Korean President Kim Jong Un, who has not hosted another world leader in Pyongyang – among the globe’s most politically isolated capitals – since the COVID-19 pandemic.

The closely watched visit is expected to further cement a burgeoning partnership between the two powers that is founded on their shared animosity toward the West and driven by Putin’s need for support in his ongoing war on Ukraine. Following his visit to North Korea, Putin will travel to Hanoi Wednesday for another two-day trip, in a display of Communist-governed Vietnam’s ties to Russia that is likely to rankle the United States.

The US, South Korea and other countries have accused North Korea of providing substantial military aid to Russia’s war effort in recent months, while observers have raised concerns that Moscow may be violating international sanctions to aid Pyongyang’s development of its nascent military satellite program. Both countries have denied North Korean arms exports. Putin’s trip reciprocates one Kim made last September, when the North Korean leader traveled in his armored train to Russia’s far eastern region, for a visit that included stops at a factory that produces fighter jets and a rocket-launch facility.

Kim last week hailed the future of the countries’ “meaningful ties and close comradeship” in a message to Putin commemorating Russia’s national day on June 12. Putin’s visit to North Korea is widely viewed as an opportunity for him to seek to bolster Kim’s support for his war – a goal that may be increasingly urgent as long-delayed American military aid for Ukraine comes online. (CNN)

Photo: Russian President Vladimir Putin greets North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ahead of their tour of the Vostochny Cosmodrome space launch center in Russia’s Amur region  in September 2023. (Kremlin Press Office/Getty Images)…[+]