Politics

Kim inspects Russian aircraft factories following Putin summit

(Update 1: Adds information on visit from Russian government, changes headline, lede, edits throughout)

Moscow, Sep 15 (EFE).- North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un visited military and civil aircraft production factories and was given an Su-35 fighter jet demonstration in Komsomolsk-on-Amur on Friday.

Russian Minister of Industry and Trade and Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov and Kim toured the engineering center and production workshops of the Gagarin aviation plant, a branch of the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), and the production center of the parent company of the civilian division of UAC Yakovlev.

“We demonstrated to the leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea one of our leading aircraft production facilities,” said Manturov in a statement from the Russian government.

“We see the potential for cooperation both in the field of aircraft manufacturing and in other industries – this is especially important for achieving the tasks facing our countries to achieve technological sovereignty.”

In the Gagarin plant’s design department, engineers taught him the digital technologies used to create modern aircraft, it said.

Kim also inspected the assembly production of fighter aircraft.

Manturov showed the North Korean leader the areas where the fuselage compartments and wing assemblies of the civil Superjet 100 (SJ-100) take place and are manufactured.

At the end of the visit, Kim and Manturov watched a flight demonstration of the Su-35 multirole fighter.

Kim arrived in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, a town in the eastern Russian region of Khabarovsk, aboard his armored train on Friday after traveling more than 1,100 kilometers from the Vostochny Cosmodrome, where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday.

Although the details have not been made public, Putin said after the meeting that there is room for military and space cooperation between the two countries.

According to media outlets such as the New York Times last week, citing US intelligence sources, Kim could be willing to support Moscow’s war in Ukraine with anti-tank missiles and artillery ammunition, while Pyongyang could receive food aid and satellite and nuclear-powered submarine technology in return.

The head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, has told local media that North Korea began supplying weapons to the Russian Army “a month and a half ago.”

Kim will next travel to Vladivostok, where the Russian defense ministry will show him the capabilities of the Navy’s Pacific Fleet, Putin said on Wednesday.

Additionally, in this city in the Russian Far East, Kim will visit the Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok, as well as the Russian Academy of Sciences, including laboratories researching marine biology.

Kim has been traveling in Russia since Sep. 12. EFE

mos/tw

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