By Inviting Putin to Visit North Korea, Kim Jong-Un has Given the Kremlin Leader the Chance to Go to a World Capital other than The Hague, Some Russians Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 15 – Kim Jong-Un has expanded Putin’s options as far as foreign travel is concerned, some Russians say. Before the North Korean leader asked the Kremlin one to visit Pyongyang, Putin’s only real invitation to travel approach came from the international war crimes court in The Hague.

            That is just one of the anecdotes Moscow journalist Tatyana Pushkaryova has collected and posted on line this week (publizist.ru/blogs/107374/46763/-). Among the best of the rest are the following:

·       Expanded cooperation between North Korea and Russia shows just how bad things are for both countries.

·       Shuttering the airline company that was behind the Ural Airlines disaster is a precedent that should be expanded to include shuttering all those responsible for all the other disasters in Russia over the last two decades.

·       The Kremlin has given the defense ministry the power not to include in contract service Russians without legs, without arms and without eyes as it scrapes the bottom of the barrel to find more troops.

·       If Kim joined the union state of Russia and Belarus, then the North Korean leader could become Putin’s successor. That would certainly cause the West to shudder in fear.

·       A new rector at a formerly prestigious university asks a senior professor whether he supports the government’s foreign and domestic policies. The professor says he approves and supports. Pressed for his own opinion, the professor acknowledges that he has his own view but neither approves nor supports it.

·       Once again the most constant thing in Russia today are temporary difficulties.