The Russian publication mk.ru gave a different reading of the visit of the Russian President Vladimir Putin to North Korea (and Vietnam). In fact, the actual purpose of the visit was not aimed at the USA and Europe, but at China.
Economist Mikhail Khazin said that Russian President Vladimir Putin's trips to North Korea and Vietnam were a sharp response to China, which, due to fear of Western sanctions, does not want to help Russia, Telekanal78.ru reported. This could even be seen as an ultimatum.
Russia has a wide range of defense technologies, but according to Khazin, it suffers from a lack of production capacity due to the crises and corruption of the 1990s. Therefore, it was important for Putin to conclude an agreement with the DPRK, where there are many enterprises with unused capacity. At the same time, North Korea is of great importance to China in light of a possible “American arc from Japan to the Philippines”, aimed at isolating China from the world ocean.
In this case, the Chinese will be able to enter the World Ocean through North Korean ports and the Russian Sea of Okhotsk - there are no other options.
The Russian president's warm welcome in Pyongyang has caused concern in the West, but Khazin says the attention is in the wrong direction.
According to the economist, the real purpose of the visits was not aimed at the USA and Europe, but at China, which is too afraid of Western sanctions to help Russia circumvent them. This means that Beijing tried to deceive Moscow about the agreements reached. “These things that Putin and Xi discussed and agreed upon... Xi could not fulfill them. Because it was unable to deal with its financial and economic elite (and the fear of Western backlash). And Russia was faced with the question of what to do, Khazin said.
According to Western experts, Russia is too dependent on China regarding the war in Ukraine. Beijing, although it did not condemn the Russian invasion, stepped very carefully with regard to the war in Ukraine, because it knows that economically the most profitable partnership is with the EU and the USA, not with Russia.