The Fiscal Times:
Just a few months after their two countries declared a “Year of Friendship” to celebrate greater political and economic ties, the relationship between Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un is in question.
Kim, the reclusive young North Korean leader who took power on the death of his father in 2011, had been widely expected to visit Moscow at Putin’s invitation in order to attend a major celebration commemorating the end of World War II. Instead, North Korea announced Monday the president of its parliament would attend the celebration.
The trip would have been significant for Kim not just because it was to be his first venture abroad as ruler, but because Russia was the destination. The potential visit, as well as various discussions about deepening North Korea’s economic ties with Moscow, had been seen by experts as evidence of Kim’s desire to establish relationships that would reduce his country’s dependence on China.
Putin’s Russia, meanwhile, needs all the new friends it can get. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula last year, and in the face of the Kremlin’s continued support of armed rebellion in eastern Ukraine, Moscow has been hit with punishing sanctions by the U.S. and Europe.
Relations between Putin’s government and the West have become so tense that many western leaders have also declined to attend the celebrations in Moscow this month, despite the fact that their countries were allied with Russia in the Second World War…
