When Kim Jong Un finally arrives at the railway station in Waldiwostok after 20 hours, his staff are busy. The train is still rolling, as they are already cleaning the window of the number five wagon, from which the North Korean ruler comes a little later. But first you have to be ranked, the train has gone too far. He has to reset so Kim can step on the red carpet.

The 684 kilometers between Pyongyang and the East Russian city could have coped faster with Kim, but he does not like to fly. Therefore, he sat down with his 230-man delegation on the train, even if the wagons still had to be repositioned at the border because of the narrower North Korean on suitable for the wider Russian railroad chassis.

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Kim visits Russia for the first time and meets with Vladimir Putin on Thursday. The visit takes place under massive security measures. After being received with military honors, Kim, in his limousine brought to Vladivostok, was brought to the Far Eastern Federal University grounds on the island of Ruskij.

Kim-free for students

He lives there until Friday and will also hold talks with the Russian President on the foreclosed grounds. The students were on leave until Saturday.

Putin wanted to meet the North Korean ruler for a long time, several times he invited him publicly. But most of all, Kim was busy negotiating with the heads of state of China and South Korea, Xi Jinping and Moon Jae In, and, of course, US President Donald Trump. However, two meetings of Trump and Kim in the nuclear dispute brought no breakthrough, the last summit in Vietnam burst.

In video: By train to visit Putin

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Most recently, Washington imposed new sanctions on Pyongyang. The North Korean regime responded by demanding that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo be withdrawn from talks. Pyongyang also said it had tested a new "tactical missile". The fact that the talks with the US falter is a chance for Moscow to get involved, says Alexander Gabuew, Asia expert of the Carnegie think tank in Moscow, the SPIEGEL.

After all, North Korea is one of the neighboring states in eastern Russia. Although the common border measures just under 17 kilometers, Moscow worries about the stability in the region - and wants to have a say.

"In this conflict Russia wants to be integrated with China, it is not for the Kremlin that only Washington alone decides," says Andrei Suzdsev, vice director of the Faculty of World Economy and Politics at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, the SPIEGEL , However, like expert Gabuew, he does not expect any great results from the meeting of the two heads of state.

Putin can not offer Kim too much; economic trade with the crisis country North Korea is severely limited because of international sanctions. The already low export of coal, wheat, dried fish, medicines and baby foods from Russia declined again in recent years.

For the North Korean dictator, however, only the pictures with the Russian head of state are likely to be worth the trip. Thus, the encounter shows that he still has other diplomatic opportunities to talk - this message is especially true Trump. Both - Putin and Kim - reject Western sanctions as a political tool.

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Trains from North Korea: Kim's green giants

Russia is still valued in North Korea: "North Korea still believes in Russia today: If things get tough, Moscow will help, people think in Pyongyang," says analyst Susdaltsew. For historical reasons: After the Korean War between 1950 and 1953, Moscow helped significantly in the reconstruction of North Korea. After that, relations cooled off. With Putin they improved again, he traveled to Pyongyang for the first time in 2000 to meet Kim Jong Il, the father of Kim Jong Un. Two years later, he came to Vladivostok for the first time for a return visit.

The Russian city on the Pacific Ocean therefore has great symbolic significance. The Kremlin said that the son and current ruler of North Korea wants to visit some of the places his father used to visit: the harbor, the bread factory, and the room of the Gawan Hotel, where Kim Jong Il stayed overnight and a commemorative plaque remind.

Economic help?

In addition to the images that are important to Kim during this visit, he is looking for economic support. Pyongyang wants to reduce its economic dependency on China, the regime would like to increase the volume of trade with Russia in the coming year to up to one billion dollars. How this should happen is still unclear.

Alexander Zemlianichenko / AP

Putin and Kim Jong Il

As Kommersant reports, a mechanism could be set up for the two countries to exchange goods without paying for them. At the end of each year, it should then be determined what value the deliveries had. However, there is a major imbalance: Russia recently exported $ 32 million worth of goods to North Korea, but imported only $ 2 million worth of products there.

"I do not see any economic sense in this system, Russia would pay, unless it does exactly that and it's a hidden loan for Pyongyang," says expert Gabuew. Therefore, he considers the chances that this mechanism will come into effect for low - "30 to 40 percent probability perhaps". Kim needs urgent relief supplies. Experts warn of a new food crisis in North Korea in the summer.

Still about 8000 workers in Russia

In addition, according to a United Nations resolution from 2017, all North Korean workers have to be withdrawn from Russia. They bring important currencies to the regime, as workers have to pay a large part of their earnings to the North Korean state after research by human rights organizations. According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, there are still about 8,000 workers in the country, most of them in Moscow. Two years before the World Cup, there were still 37,000.

Putin will have a brief meeting with Kim. He flies to Beijing after the meeting to meet Xi Jinping at the second summit of the "New Silk Road" infrastructure project. An event that is given much greater importance by the Kremlin.

For years, Moscow has been seeking greater rapprochement with China since the West has sanctioned the country since the annexation of the Crimea. So far, the Russian hopes have hardly been fulfilled.