Just after the pre-dawn touchdown, Russian TV showed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un greeting Putin in the dark, on a red carpet at Pyongyang’s airport, with the pair shaking hands and embracing before a motorcade took Putin along streets lined with Russian flags.

The trip is Putin’s first to the isolated nation in 24 years, with a recent confrontation between North and South Korean troops on the countries’ shared border highlighting regional security tensions.

Moscow and Pyongyang have been allies since North Korea’s founding after World War II and have drawn even closer since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 led to the West isolating Putin internationally.

The United States and its allies have accused North Korea of supplying Russia with much-needed arms, including ballistic missiles to use in Ukraine.

The North has denied giving Russia military hardware, but ahead of his trip, Putin thanked Kim’s government for helping the war effort.

“We highly appreciate that the DPRK (North Korea) is firmly supporting the special military operations of Russia being conducted in Ukraine,” Putin wrote in an article published by Pyongyang’s state media Tuesday.

Russia and the North are “now actively developing the many-sided partnership”, Putin wrote.

Both countries are under rafts of United Nations sanctions — Pyongyang since 2006 over banned nuclear and ballistic missile programmes and Moscow over the invasion of Ukraine.

Putin praised North Korea for “defending their interests very effectively despite the US economic pressure, provocation, blackmail and military threats that have lasted for decades”.

He also hailed Moscow and Pyongyang for “maintaining the common line and stand at the UN”.

North Korea said the visit showed bilateral ties “are getting stronger day by day”, the official Korean Central News Agency reported.

– US concern –

Pyongyang has described allegations of supplying weapons to Russia as “absurd”.

However, it did thank Russia for using its UN veto in March to effectively end monitoring of sanctions violations just as UN experts were starting to probe alleged arms transfers.

The United States voiced “concern” Monday about Putin’s trip because of the security implications for South Korea as well as Ukraine.

The two Koreas have remained technically at war since their 1950-53 conflict and the border dividing them is one of the most heavily fortified in the world.

“We know North Korean ballistic missiles are still being used to hit Ukrainian targets (and) there could be some reciprocity here that could affect security on the Korean peninsula,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.

Highlighting those security concerns, South Korea said its troops fired warning shots at soldiers from the North who briefly crossed the border Tuesday and then retreated.

The South’s military said it believed the North Korean soldiers accidentally crossed as they were fortifying the border, but said some of them were wounded after detonating landmines.

– ‘Lonely bromance’ –

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Putin’s trip showed how he was “dependent” on authoritarian leaders.

“Their closest friends and the biggest supporters of the Russian war effort — war of aggression — (are) North Korea, Iran and China,” Stoltenberg said.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba urged the international community to counter “the lonely bromance” between Putin and Kim by increasing arms supplies to Kyiv.

“The best way to respond to it is to continue strengthening the diplomatic coalition for just and lasting peace in Ukraine and delivering more Patriots and ammunition to Ukraine,” Kuleba told AFP.

North Korea is eager for high-end military technology to advance its nuclear, missile, satellite and nuclear-powered submarine programmes, according to experts.

The Kremlin released a document on Tuesday confirming that Russia plans to sign a “strategic partnership” treaty with North Korea.

Given North Korea’s chronic resource shortages, Pyongyang is expected to discuss ways to strengthen cooperation in areas such as tourism, agriculture and mining, “in exchange for providing military supplies” to Russia, a report from the Seoul-based Institute for National Security Strategy said.

Other issues including “cooperation on the deployment of North Korean workers or the supply of energy to North Korea — both of which would violate sanctions… are also likely to be discussed” behind the scenes, INSS researcher Kim Sung-bae wrote.

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According to the report, nearly two-thirds of those facing acute hunger come from just eight countries: Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. And although there were 11 million fewer people believed to be in food crisis in 2018 compared with 2017, in 17 countries, acute hunger either remained the same or increased, the report indicates.

Moreover, an additional 143 million people in another 42 countries are just one step away from acute hunger. Climate and natural disasters pushed another 29 million people into acute food insecurity in 2018, says the report, and that number excludes 13 countries – including North Korea and Venezuela – because of data gaps.

“It is clear from the Global Report that despite a slight drop in 2018 in the number of people experiencing acute food insecurity – the most extreme form of hunger – the figure is still far too high”, said FAO Director-General, José Graziano da Silva, speaking at a two-day conference to discuss the findings, in Brussels.

“We must act at scale across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus to build the resilience of affected and vulnerable populations. To save lives, we also have to save livelihoods”, he added.

While critical to saving lives and alleviating human suffering, humanitarian assistance does not address the root causes of food crises, WFP Executive Director, David Beasley noted in Brussels, highlighted the importance of “attacking the root causes of hunger: conflict, instability, the impact of climate shocks”.

“Boys and girls need to be well-nourished and educated, women need to be truly empowered, rural infrastructure must be strengthened in order to meet that Zero Hunger goal.

Programmes that make a community resilient and more stable will also reduce the number of hungry people. And one thing we need world leaders to do as well: step up to the plate and help solve these conflicts, right now”, Mr. Beasley added.

From 2014 to 2020, the EU will have provided nearly €9 billion for initiatives on food and nutrition security and sustainable agriculture in over 60 countries.

“Food crises continue to be a global challenge, which requires our joint efforts. The EU continues to step up its humanitarian efforts. Over the last three years, the EU allocated the biggest humanitarian food and nutrition assistance budget ever, with nearly €2 billion overall. Food crises are becoming more acute and complex and we need innovative ways to tackle and prevent them from happening”, said Christos Stylianides, EU Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management.

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The power show is against North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme and intransigence, but the action is escalating already sky-high tensions in the region.

The hermit state’s foreign minister meanwhile derided Donald Trump as “mentally deranged” at the United Nations, while the US president fired back on Twitter with fresh threats.

The latest exchange of bellicose rhetoric comes as international alarm mounts over Pyongyang’s weapons ambitions — including a suggestion this week that the country is considering detonating an H-bomb over the Pacific.

US bombers have carried out similar flights before, as the United States and the international community struggle to rein in North Korea’s weapons programmes.

But in a new stage for such show-of-force operations, the Pentagon stressed this was the furthest north of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas that any US fighter or bomber has flown off North Korea’s coast in this century.

“This mission is a demonstration of US resolve and a clear message that the president has many military options to defeat any threat,” Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White said.

“We are prepared to use the full range of military capabilities to defend the US homeland and our allies.”

The Air Force B-1B Lancer bombers flown Saturday are based in Guam, and were accompanied by F-15C Eagle fighter escorts from Okinawa, Japan, White said. They flew over international waters off the east coast of North Korea.

There was another reason for concern after an underground rumble near North Korea’s nuclear test site. China at first said it suspected an explosion.

But it was later ruled by a nuclear test ban watchdog and other experts to be a shallow 3.5-magnitude earthquake and likely an aftershock from the hermit state’s latest nuclear test on September

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The sanctions which will be announced by President Donald Trump is however not targeted at the country’s oil.

This is even as more allies of the U.S. have called for enforcing international sanctions as the best way to get Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons program.

Tensions have risen in recent weeks over North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile tests, despite intense pressure from world powers.

“We will be putting more sanctions on North Korea,” Trump said in response to a question at a meeting with Afghan president Ashraf Ghani in New York on the sidelines of the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly.

A senior administration official told Reuters earlier the announcement would be sanctions-related but would not target oil.

On Tuesday, Trump said in his speech to the U.N. that he would “totally destroy” North Korea if threatened and mocked its leader Kim Jong Un as a “rocket man” for his repeated ballistic missile tests.

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