Putin's North Korea Visit 'Shows Where Russia Is On The World Stage', White House Says

The White House on Wednesday reacted to Vladimir Putin's visit to North Korea saying that it "shows" where Russia is on the world stage, and who its closest partners in the world are, TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.

"It's clear that this is a partnership that has been expanding," Michael Carpenter, the Senior Director for Europe at the National Security Council, told TURAN's correspondent during a virtual briefing organized by the State Department's Brussels Media Hub.

Putin and Kim Jong-un revived a Cold War-era mutual defense pledge between their nations on Wednesday, as the Kremlin deepened its security relationship with North Korea and vowed solidarity in challenging the West.

"It also shows you where Russia is on the world stage, where its closest partners in the world are North Korea, Iran, Syria, and then to a certain degree — to a different degree — the People's Republic of China, which is not providing Russia with weapons, but which is providing a lot of the dual-use products that go into the production of advanced weapons systems, things like nitrocellulose and optics and machine tools that directly support Russia's defense industrial base, and hence pose a threat to Ukraine, but also to European security," Carpenter said, adding, tha's the coalition Russia has assembled.

"Contrast that with the coalition of 50 countries at the Ukraine Defense Contact Group that's supporting Ukraine, and then the roughly 100 countries that have supported the principles of the UN Charter in Switzerland. You'll see a distinct contrast there," he went on to add.

Speaking about the Ukraine Peace Summit, Carpenter said, the fact that 83 countries from all the continent signed on to the summit communique, which underscored the bedrock principles of the UN Charter, including, sovereignty and territorial integrity, it's a "demonstration of remarkable unity."

"And certainly, we would encourage and support all countries to sign on to that framework," he added when asked by TURAN whether the White House was willing to lobby for more countries to sign the communique.

Carpenter also spoke about Putin's vision for a settlement which was laid out last week when the Kremlin leader made it patently clear that, from his perspective, negotiations could begin only if Ukraine ceded all of the territory Russia has occupied, which is nearly 20 percent of Ukraine's territory, and then ceded additional land that Russia has long said it wanted to take from Ukraine in the south and east.

"That's not a negotiation. That's a surrender," Carpenter said.  "In fact, it's pretty clear what it is. It's an imperialist land grab... That's why the United States has worked so hard to support Ukraine, because Ukraine is defending the international order from precisely such predation."

When asked by TURAN whether Ukraine already had a right to use U.S. weapons to target Russian attackers regardless of what region they are coming from, Carpenter said, when it comes to the American-supplied weapons, "we've been pretty clear that this rule of engagement to allow for Ukrainians to fire back on those Russian positions just across the border in the Kharkiv region, but also in the Sumy region."

According to him, it is designed to prevent Russia from having a de-facto sanctuary on its side of the border from which it is attacking Ukrainian territory and Ukrainian military posts on the Ukrainian side of the border. "So that has been made clear. I think we've discussed it at some length, and that will continue to be the case."

Carpenter also spoke about the upcoming NATO summit in Washington, where he said Ukraine "will be a significant subject" of discussion. "We also expect President Zelensky to come and to hold a NATO-Ukraine council meeting at the leaders level,"  he said.

"We are currently in discussions, and I know NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has already publicly discussed some of this in terms of how we intend as an alliance to support Ukraine going forward with such things as training coordination, equipment coordination, defense institution building, and things of that nature," he added.