Although North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un’s travels inevitably attract a lot of media attention due to his country’s inherent secrecy and opacity, expectations were not high for the summit with Vladimir Putin, on April 25, in Vladivostok (Kommersant, April 25). And to a large degree,... MORE

Russian President Vladimir Putin had long requested a meeting with North Korea’s youngish leader, Kim Jong-un, but it was only in mid-April that Russian diplomatic persuasion started to show promise. And a good-neighborly handshake between the two men finally took place in Vladivostok last week... MORE

Official Russian discourse on the status of relations with China is as upbeat as it can possibly be. Andrei Denisov, the long-serving ambassador to Beijing, claims that the two countries are enjoying the best period ever in the history of their partnership (Russiancouncil.ru, March 3).... MORE

Ever since the Six-Party Talks to denuclearize North Korea began in 2003, Russia has relentlessly searched for a way to prove its importance to all the other players, which also include South Korea, Japan, the United States and China. Indeed, a major driver of Russian... MORE

The annual Russia-hosted Eastern Economic Forum is about to open (September 11–13) in Vladivostok, and President Vladimir Putin has arrived there to greet the leaders of China, Japan, Mongolia and South Korea. This carefully prepared ceremony should provide relief for him from the mounting tensions... MORE

Some, especially in the West, have argued that United States President Donald Trump has effectively sidelined Russia from the rapidly evolving Korean situation by his rapprochement with North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong-un, at the recent summit in Singapore. But such suggestions cloud years of Russian... MORE

This year’s G7 summit, held in Quebec, Canada, on June 8–9, was overcome by seemingly unprecedented controversies even before United States President Donald Trump suggested bringing Russia back into this elite club of the world’s largest liberal-democratic economies. Only the newly appointed Italian Prime Minister... MORE

Since the announcement of looming inter-Korean and United States–North Korean summits, regional powers China, Japan and Russia have all striven mightily not to be excluded or marginalized from those processes. All thee governments are doing what they can to support the summits. On one hand,... MORE

The end of April was extraordinarily rich in high-profile international events—and Russia was conspicuously absent from all these dynamics. The president of South Korea and the North Korean dictator planted a pine tree of peace just to the south of the ceasefire line that still... MORE

During a January 11 meeting with the editors of major Russian print media outlets, President Vladimir Putin praised the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, as a mature and “absolutely learned politician.” According to Putin, Kim “has, without a doubt, won the game and achieved... MORE