SEOUL, South Korea — Russian President Vladimir Putin, wrapping up his Asian tour Friday after two days in Hanoi, Vietnam, and two days in Pyongyang, North Korea, had harsh words for NATO and South Korea.
The tour by Mr. Putin, who last visited Vietnam in 2017 and North Korea in 2000, aimed to rejuvenate old partnerships in a region where Russia is vastly overshadowed by a multi-domain China-U.S. rivalry.
For a Russian audience, Mr. Putin’s blowout receptions in both Vietnam and North Korea showed they are not entirely isolated. Deals were struck to assist both his sanction-strangled economy and his struggling war effort in Ukraine.
However, the eye-catching agreement he signed in North Korea on Wednesday has ignited blowback that could rise to hurricane force — by compelling an industrial powerhouse to begin the direct supply of arms to Ukraine.
Swaying with ‘bamboo diplomacy’
In Hanoi, a guard of honor and a military band welcomed Mr. Putin, who subsequently visited the mausoleum of national founding father Ho Chi Minh and spoke with Vietnamese students in the capital’s Opera House.
On Friday, Mr. Putin said he had held “very productive talks with the president, the prime minister and the secretary general” of the Communist Party of Vietnam’s Central Committee.
Per reports, Mr. Putin and Vietnamese President To Lam signed 12 memoranda for cooperation in sectors including civil nuclear projects, education and disease prevention.
On the sidelines of the summit, Russian and Vietnamese energy companies signed memoranda on cooperation, and Mr. Putin offered to either supply liquified natural gas (LNG) to Vietnam or help Vietnam process the energy source in-country.
Earlier, Mr. Putin had submitted a column published in the Vietnamese party newspaper Nhan Da, in which he praised bilateral progress on trade, energy and payment systems.
Hanoi was supported by Moscow in its war against the United States, and has abstained in the UN General Assembly from votes on Russia’s war in Ukraine.
However, Hanoi’s “bamboo diplomacy” sees the country shifting with prevailing winds rather than taking ideological positions: In 2023, it welcomed both U.S. President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
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It has taken a pragmatic economic stance that prioritizes overseas investment – including, from Japan and South Korea, that is de-risking away from China.
Some 80 percent of Vietnam’s weapons are Russian, but Hanoi — like nonaligned New Delhi — is diversifying its suppliers, Western arms executives say.
That process may be accelerated by the priorities affecting Russia’s weapons factories, which are working flat out to supply troops in Ukraine, rather than the international export market.
Russia in Asia
The Kremlin’s military muscle in the Russian Far East is weakening as assets, including marines, deploy to Ukraine. Vladivostok lies 5,621 miles from Moscow, and the region is beset by a falling population, labor shortages and long-held fears of eventual Chinese absorption.
In a press conference in Hanoi, Mr. Putin sought to focus Asian partners against an encroaching, extra-regional threat.
“We see what is going on in Asia: the bloc system is being put together, NATO is practically moving there permanently,” Mr. Putin said. “This, of course, poses a threat to all countries in the region, including Russia. We are obliged to respond to this, and we will do so.”
Alarmed by Russia’s assault on Ukraine – and fearing that it could inspire a Chinese onslaught against Taiwan - democracies on the Atlantic and Pacific rims are securing new ties.
The United States maintains extensive basing arrangements and alliances in Indo-Pacific. European powers – including France, the UK, the Netherlands and Germany – are deploying to the region to train with and build ties with the forces of Asian democracies.
In the wake of developments in Pyongyang, Mr. Putin, per Russian media reports, downplayed the possibility of North Korean troops joining Russia’s fight in Ukraine.
Clarifying that Russia has not asked North Korea for help, nor has Pyongyang offered it, he said the mutual aid clause in their agreement is triggered in “in the event of aggression” against either state.
However, Ukraine did not aggress against Russia, he admitted: “It started aggression against the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics that we recognized as independent — before they became part of the Russian Federation.”
While the North Korea-Russia agreement showcased the impotence of the collective West, it may open a gushing new arms spigot to Kyiv.
Blowback in Seoul
“We plan to reconsider the issue of arms support to Ukraine,” South Korea’s National Security Adviser Chang Ho-jin said after the content of the Pyongyang agreement was made public on Thursday.
On Friday, the South Korean Foreign Ministry summoned the Russian ambassador to Seoul to express its displeasure.
Separately, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said, “We welcome any support for Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression.”
South Korea has sent nonlethal aid to Ukraine including medical and mine-clearing gear, but not arms. It has dispatched shipments of 155mm artillery shells from stockpiles to the United States, which is believed to have forwarded them to Ukraine.
Korea’s armorers are benefitting massively from supply to up-arming NATO countries, notably Poland — currently acquiring the biggest weapons order in South Korea’s commercial history: hundreds of tanks, self-propelled howitzers, multiple-launch rocket systems and combat jets.
In Hanoi, Mr. Putin warned South Korea.
“As for the supply of lethal weapons to the combat zone in Ukraine, it would be a very big mistake, I hope it will not happen,” he said. “If it does, then we too will then make respective decisions, which South Korea’s current leadership is unlikely to be pleased with.”
Yang Uk, a security expert with think tank the Asan Institute, defied a widespread belief, saying Seoul could move swiftly to arm Kyiv.
“We don’t need permission from the National Assembly,” he said. “It is the director of Defense Acquisition Program Administration who has the authority to do that, and he goes to the defense minister and up to the president.”
“Russia sabotaged the sanctions regime and became the battle tester for North Korean ballistic missiles in Ukraine, and that information will be fed to North Korea to perfect their missiles,” Mr. Yang added. “Putin should pay for what he did.”
• Andrew Salmon can be reached at asalmon@washingtontimes.com.