(Hanoi) Vladimir Putin, visiting Hanoi, pledged Thursday to develop relations between Russia and Vietnam, to which Moscow has sold weapons for decades, in an effort to circumvent the isolation caused by the war in Ukraine .
“Russia attaches great importance to strengthening relations with Vietnam,” declared the Russian president, following a bilateral meeting with his Vietnamese counterpart, To Lam.
“We expressed mutual interest in creating a reliable and adequate security architecture in the Asia-Pacific that would be based on the principles of non-use of force, peaceful resolution of disputes and where there is no there will be no room for closed politico-military blocs,” he insisted.
Hanoi and Moscow have signed around ten partnerships, in justice, energy, education and civil nuclear power.
Vietnam also hopes to “push defense and security cooperation,” To Lam said.
Relations between Russia and Vietnam draw strength from wars involving the Vietnamese Communist Party (CPV), which benefited from military support from its Soviet “big brother” to defeat the capitalist south and unite the country in 1975.
Moscow remains, by far, Vietnam’s main arms supplier, but volumes have fallen in recent years, despite growing tensions in the South China Sea where Hanoi is worried about Beijing’s expansionist aims.
Vladimir Putin arrived in Vietnam on the night of Wednesday to Thursday, after an exceptional visit to Pyongyang, where Kim Jong-un considers him to be North Korea’s “best friend”.
The two countries, under Western sanctions, have concluded a “comprehensive strategic partnership”, which provides for mutual assistance “in the event of aggression”, and a possible strengthening of “military-technical cooperation”, according to Mr. Putin .
The United States and its allies fear that this accelerated rapprochement will lead to new deliveries of North Korean munitions and missiles to Russia for its war in Ukraine.
Japan said on Thursday it was “gravely concerned” about the pact, and the European Union approved a new package of sanctions against Moscow.
After the popular tide scenes in North Korea, Vladimir Putin received a more formal welcome at the presidential palace in Hanoi, the former residence of the governors of French Indochina, with cannon fire and soldiers standing at attention.
Russian flags adorn the streets of the historic center of the capital, where a large security presence maintains order and tries to regulate the usually disheveled traffic.
Vladimir Putin is due to meet later today with PCV Secretary General Nguyen Phu Trong, considered the regime’s most influential figure. The 80-year-old leader spent part of his studies in the USSR in the 1980s.
Mr. Putin’s route includes a laying of wreaths at the mausoleum of the father of independence Ho Chi Minh, and a banquet in the colonial architectural style opera house. His departure is scheduled for the evening.
By welcoming Vladimir Putin, targeted by an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC), Hanoi is exposing itself to the discontent of its Western partners, led by the United States, who consider Vietnam, 100 million inhabitants, as strategic for manufacturing or semiconductor production.
Last year, both Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden visited Hanoi, which has tried to maintain an equal distance between the two rival superpowers, following the flexible precepts of its “bamboo diplomacy” that combines caution and pragmatism.
This policy could be increasingly difficult to maintain, warned an expert. Putin’s visit represents “a test to see how far Hanoi’s multidirectional diplomacy can go, and whether it is still accepted by other major powers,” Huong Le Thu, deputy director of the Asia program, told AFP from the International Crisis Group.
Vladimir Putin thanked Hanoi for its “balanced” approach to Ukraine, in an article published Wednesday by the PCV newspaper.
