When the west goes on a diplomatic trip: Our wholesome president went on a peace mission to make fair and responsible deals for the greater good ☺️

When a country the west doesn’t like goes on a diplomatic trip: Evil dictator traveled to advance his evil scheme, he probably explained his plan to his butler in his office while looking out the window on a rainy day before laughing maniacally as thunder struck outside 👿

This is the best summary I could come up with:

North Korea sat at the center: a rogue nuclear state that regularly threatens its neighbors, suddenly empowered by Russian promises of sophisticated military aid and a mutual defense pact.

Mr. Putin also signed at least a dozen deals with Vietnam — a country of growing importance for both China and the United States as they vie for influence — where he insisted that “reliable security architecture” could not be built with “closed military-political blocs.”

With his embrace of North Korea, including his open threat to better arm Kim Jong-un’s military, he has effectively added another potential crisis to Asia’s list of concerns, reigniting old hostilities on the Korean Peninsula.

“If Putin cannot get everything he wants from Beijing, he will look to get it elsewhere, and there aren’t a lot of supermarkets that cover his wish list — arms, labor and a willingness to pick a fight with Washington,” said Samuel Greene, a professor of Russian politics at King’s College London.

To some degree, Mr. Putin’s trip to Asia was also a potent reminder of Russia’s historic military ties: North Korea, India, and Vietnam are just a few of the countries that have been heavily dependent on Russian hardware for decades, creating links in training and maintenance that keep Moscow deeply embedded in the region.

The full scope of what was agreed is not clear, but analysts predicted that some would probably emerge later as defense-related, with financing devised to skirt international sanctions — possibly with payment in the form of oil and gas rights in the South China Sea.

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