Russia: Russian President Mr. Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Mr. Kim Jong Un gifted each other rifles at a space center in Russia. The Russian leader also presented his counterpart from Pyongyang with a glove from a cosmonaut’s space suit.
Traveling onboard his armored train from North Korea, Mr. Kim met with Mr. Putin at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Amur region of the Russian Far East, where the two leaders greeted each other warmly. The Kremlin stated that Mr. Kim’s visit to Russia’s Far East would last “a few more days.”
Asked whether the two had exchanged gifts, Kremlin spokesman Mr. Dmitry Peskov said that Mr. Putin gave the North Korean leader a high-quality Russian-made rifle and a glove from a spacesuit “that had been in space several times.”
The Russian president “gave Mr. Kim a rifle from our production of the highest quality. In return, he also received a North Korean-made rifle,” Mr. Peskov commented. Moscow also confirmed that Mr. Putin “gratefully accepted Mr. Kim’s invitation” to visit the North Korean capital, Pyongyang.
Mr. Peskov added that Moscow will first “quickly prepare” to send Russia’s Foreign Minister Mr. Sergei Lavrov to Pyongyang, with his trip expected in October, before a Putin visit can be arranged.
It would be the Russian leader’s second trip to North Korea. Mr. Putin last visited in July 2000 to meet Mr. Kim’s late father, Mr. Kim Jong-il, just months after being elected to the presidency. Mr. Kim last visited Russia in 2019.
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