State media said Tuesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin gave his North Korean rival Kim Jong Un a car. This is another sign that relations between the two countries are getting better, which worries people in the United States.
The Russian team brought Kim his own car on Sunday, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), which is run by the government. Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for the Kremlin, told the Russian state news agency TASS that the car was an Aurus. Aurus is a luxury car company that was started in 2018 to make Russia’s official state cars.
An important person in Pyongyang named Kim Yo Jong thanked Putin on behalf of her brother and said, “the gift serves as a clear demonstration of the special personal relations between the top leaders of (North Korea) and Russia,” as reported by KCNA.
Several people familiar with the latest information have told CNN that US intelligence officials are growing more worried about what the long-term effects will be of what seems to be a new level of strategic partnership between North Korea and Russia.
In the past few weeks, Russia has shot many short-range ballistic missiles from North Korea at Ukrainian targets. At the same time, US officials are worried that North Korea might be able to use a closer relationship with Russia to weaken China’s influence. This could mean that Pyongyang no longer has to worry about China’s influence, which some see as an important barrier to their nuclear testing program.
In January, top Russian and North Korean officials met in Moscow to get ready for what North Korean state media say will be Putin’s first trip to Pyongyang in more than 20 years. In September, Kim went to Russia to meet with Putin. There, he supported the Russian government’s war in Ukraine and said, “I will always stand with Russia.”
The United Nations has put sanctions on North Korea because of its nuclear weapons program. Putin’s gift might be against those rules. However, Kim has been seen in a number of high-end cars over the years, even though expensive goods aren’t allowed to be sent to North Korea.
People often see the leader of North Korea being driven around in what looks like a Mercedes-Maybach Pullman Guard armed limousine, which costs more than $1 million.
In 2018, he drove a black Rolls-Royce to a meeting with US officials. The Netherlands sent two armed Mercedes-Maybach S600 Guard cars to North Korea earlier that year. The Center for Advanced Defense Studies in Washington, DC, says it is likely that Kim will use them.
According to the center, Pyongyang brought in more than 800 high-end cars just from 2015 to 2017, with most of them coming from Russian companies.
When Kim Jong Un came to Russia in September of last year, Putin showed him his Aurus car.
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President Donald Trump also showed Kim the official Cadillac limousine known as “the Beast” while they were talking in Singapore in 2018.
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