Vladimir Putin, visiting Hanoi, pledged Thursday to develop relations with Vietnam, to which his country has sold weapons for decades, with a view to countering Western attempts to isolate Russia for its war in Ukraine.
“Russia attaches great importance to strengthening relations with Vietnam,” said the Russian president, who met with the top leaders of the communist state.
The two parties have signed around ten partnerships, notably in energy, education and civil nuclear power. The joint communiqué emphasizes the “warm and friendly” atmosphere of the discussions and the “high degree of trust and mutual understanding”.
Vietnam is the second and final stop on a mini-tour in Asia for Vladimir Putin, after North Korea on Wednesday, where the announcement of a bilateral defense agreement sparked new Western criticism.
Hanoi also hopes to “push cooperation in defense and security” with Moscow, underlined Vietnamese President To Lam.
Since the Soviet period, Russia has remained, by far, Vietnam’s main arms supplier, but volumes have fallen in recent years, despite the militarization of the South China Sea where Vietnamese authorities are concerned about expansionist aims. from Beijing.
“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 will have no room for closed politico-military blocs,” Mr. Putin confided.
He arrived in Vietnam during the night from Wednesday to Thursday, after an exceptional trip to Pyongyang, where Kim Jong-un considers him his country’s “best friend”.
Support
Russia and North Korea, 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 the Russian army for its war in Ukraine.
Japan said Thursday it was “gravely concerned” about the pact, while the European Union approved a new package of sanctions against Russia.
After the popular tide scenes in North Korea, Vladimir Putin received a more formal welcome at the presidential palace in Hanoi, with cannon fire and soldiers standing at attention.
Russian flags adorned the streets of the historic center of the Vietnamese capital, where a large security presence maintained order and tried to regulate the usually chaotic car traffic.
Vladimir Putin met later in the day with Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, as well as the Secretary General of the Communist Party, Nguyen Phu Trong, considered the most influential figure in the regime. Aged 80, he completed part of his studies in the USSR.
The Russian head of state also placed a wreath of flowers at the mausoleum of the father of independence Ho Chi Minh who began, in the 1920s, to establish links with his big Soviet brother.
” Test “
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, with its 100 million inhabitants, as strategic for manufacturing production, in particular of semiconductors.
Last year, Chinese President Xi Jinping and American President Joe Biden both visited the country, which tries to maintain an equal distance between the two rival superpowers, applying the precepts of its “bamboo diplomacy” which combines prudence and pragmatism.
This policy could be increasingly difficult to follow, warned an expert. Mr. Putin’s visit constitutes “a test” to see how far “Hanoi’s multidirectional diplomacy” can lead and “if it is still accepted by the other major powers”, explained to AFP Huong Le Thu, the Deputy Director of the Asia Program of the International Crisis Group.
The Russian head of state thanked Vietnam, which abstained from votes at the UN condemning the invasion of Ukraine, for its “balanced” approach on this issue, in an article published Wednesday by the local press.
Mykhaïlo Podoliak, one of the main advisers to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, for his part considered that Mr. Putin’s current tour was a visit of “yesterday’s satellites of the USSR” intended to seek “military aid and technique and cannon fodder”.