Vladimir Putin has given North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a Russian-made car for his personal use during a demonstration of their “special personal relations.”
A report confirming the gift did not say what type of vehicle Putin gave the North Korean dictator or how it was shipped.
But observers said it could violate a U.N. resolution banning the supply of luxury items to North Korea in an effort to pressure the country to give up its nuclear weapons.
Kim’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, and another North Korean official accepted the gift on Sunday and she conveyed her brother’s thanks to Putin, the Korean Central News Agency said.
Kim Yo Jong said the gift showed the special personal relationship between the leaders, the report said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has given North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a Russian-made car for his personal use during a demonstration of their ‘special relationship’
North Korea and Russia have significantly increased their cooperation since Kim traveled to Russia for a summit with Putin last September.
During Kim’s visit to Russia’s main spaceport, Putin showed the North Korean leader his personal Anrus Senat limousine and Kim took a backseat.
According to Russian state news agency Tass, Aurus was Russia’s first luxury car brand and has been used in the motorcades of top officials, including Putin, since he first used an Anrus limousine at his inauguration ceremony in 2018.
Kim, 40, is known to own many foreign-made luxury cars, which are believed to have been smuggled into his country in violation of the UN resolution.
During his visit to Russia, he traveled between meeting locations in a Maybach limousine taken on one of his special train carriages.
During a previous trip to Russia in 2019, two limousines were waiting for him at Vladivostok station: a Mercedes Maybach S600 Pullman Guard and a Mercedes Maybach S62.
He also reportedly used the S600 Pullman Guard for his two summits with then-President Donald Trump in Singapore in 2018 and Vietnam in 2019.
In 2018, Kim used a black Mercedes limousine to return home after meeting with then-President of South Korea Moon Jae-in in a shared Korean border village.
A report confirming the gift did not say what type of vehicle Putin gave to the North Korean dictator or how it was shipped
Observers said it could violate a U.N. resolution banning the supply of luxury items to North Korea in an effort to pressure the country to give up its nuclear weapons.
During Kim’s visit to Russia’s main spaceport, Putin showed the North Korean leader his personal Anrus Senat limousine and Kim sat in the backseat
Kim’s possession of such expensive foreign limousines shows the porosity of international sanctions against the North.
Russia voted in favor of banning the supply of luxury goods to North Korea, even though as a permanent member of the Security Council it could have vetoed the resolution.
The growing ties between North Korea and Russia come as they are embroiled in separate confrontations with the United States and its allies: North Korea over its advancing nuclear program and Russia over its long war with Ukraine.
A group of lawmakers late last week warned the State Department about arms transfers between North Korea and Russia.
The letter, led by Republican Reps. Young Kim, Calif., Tom Kean, NJ, Joe Wilson, SC, and Nathaniel Moran, Texas, asks the Biden administration for answers on whether North Korea’s arms sales to Russia could mean Moscow assisting Pyongyang in its search for nuclear and advanced ballistic weapons.
It comes after the Democratic Republic of North Korea (DPRK) agreed to sell weapons to Russia, which has since used Korean ballistic missiles to bomb Ukraine. The DPRK has also since offered ammunition and artillery shells.
The United Nations has warned that North Korea may seek military help from nuclear-armed Russia in response. Russia has been part of the UN National Security Council’s imposition of an arms embargo on Pyongyang since 2006 over the missile test, but is now violating the embargo.
Blaming the US, South Korea and their partners North Korea of sending conventional weapons to Russia for its war in Ukraine, in exchange for high-tech Russian weapons technologies and other support.
After the foreign minister returned home from a Russian visit in January, the North’s state media reported that Putin had expressed his willingness to visit the North at an early date.
Russian President Putin has weighed heavily on the news cycle in the US and around the world in recent weeks.
Many across the country are outraged that Alexei Navalny, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest enemy, died in prison on Friday, according to the Russian Prison Service.
The Federal Prison Service said in a statement that Navalny, 47, felt unwell after a walk and “almost immediately lost consciousness.” Paramedics reportedly arrived to try to rehabilitate him, without success.
Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny and his wife Yulia Navalnaya in September 2020
Lyudmila Navalnaya, the mother of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, and lawyer Vasily Dubkov arrive at the regional branch of the Russian Investigative Committee in the city of Salekhard in the Yamal-Nenets region, Russia on February 17, 2024
His mother said she saw her son at the prison colony on Monday. She said at the time: ‘He was alive, healthy, cheerful.’
Navalny, who was serving a 19-year prison sentence on charges of “extremism,” had only recently been transferred from his former prison in the Vladimir region of central Russia to a gruesome “special regime” penal colony above the Arctic Circle.
His allies, a courageous minority in Russia fighting corruption, said at the time they feared for his life after he “disappeared” in December to travel to the remote region notorious for its long and harsh winters – just months before the closely watched Russian presidential elections. elections next month.
Navalny’s allies say they were denied the chance to see the body, which would remain with authorities until the investigation was completed.
Navalny’s lawyer, who arrived in the city of Salekhard on Saturday with Navalny’s mother, was told by the prison that the body was being held in the morgue.
A contact at Salekhard’s mortuary later denied the body was there, raising further questions about the shocking death of one of Putin’s fiercest critics.
“It is clear that the killers want to cover their tracks and therefore will not hand over Alexei’s body, even for his mother,” his team said in a message on Telegram.
Former President Donald Trump commented on Navalny’s death – taking the opportunity to blast ‘extremely unfair’ US court decisions
President Joe Biden placed the blame for Navalny’s death squarely on Putin — though he froze when he tried to phrase an attack on former President Donald Trump over his recent comments about Russia.
Vladimir Putin stated in an interview with Russian media this morning that he would rather see Joe Biden win a second term in the White House than Donald Trump.
Russian President Vladimir Putin now says he thinks he would prefer Joe Biden to remain president of the United States
It also comes as Putin has stated that he would prefer to see Joe Biden win a second term in the White House over Donald Trump in an eyebrow-raising interview with Russian media.
Putin described the sitting US president as “predictable” and said Biden would be favored by the Kremlin because it sees him as more steadfast than the rabble-rousing, outspoken Republican.
“Biden, he is more experienced, more predictable, he is a politician of the old formation… But we will work with any American leader who the American people trust,” Putin said.
Asked about speculation about Biden’s health problems, Putin replied: “I am not a doctor and I don’t think it is appropriate to comment on that,” before later defending the US president, who has come under increasing scrutiny of late . about his age and declining memory.