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President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia \u200bmet with North Korea\u2019s leader, Kim Jong-un, in his first visit<\/a> to the country in nearly a quarter-century on\u200b Wednesday, as the two autocrats vowed to build a joint front against \u200bthe United States and \u200bdeepen bilateral ties that Washington fears will include more arms trade.<\/p>\n Mr. Putin is the first major head of state to visit North Korea since the pandemic, highlighting \u200bits importance to Russia: It is one of the few\u200b like-minded countries able and willing to supply Moscow with badly needed conventional weapons for its war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n Mr. Kim gave Mr. Putin a red-carpet welcome early Wednesday in Pyongyang, the North\u2019s capital. His energy-starved government flooded downtown Pyongyang with bright lights as the two leaders were driven in the same car \u2014 the Russian-made Aurus limousine that Mr. Putin gave Mr. Kim last year \u2014 to the state guesthouse\u200b.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Putin\u2019s war in Ukraine has brought the two leaders closer than ever before. They were expected to hold talks for most of Wednesday, according to Russian state media, before Mr. Putin moves on to Vietnam.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Putin has received artillery shells and missiles from North Korea to help fuel his drawn-out war in Ukraine, and he is widely expected to seek more of them on this trip. \u200bFor his part, Mr. Kim \u200bcovets Russian \u200bhelp in eas\u200bing his country\u2019s oil shortages, improving its weapons systems and \u200bundermining Washington\u2019s \u200battempts to strangle its economy with international sanctions.<\/p>\n The Putin-Kim alliance has alarmed Washington and its allies, particularly South Korea, because it threatens to undermine their efforts to curb North Korea\u2019s nuclear and missile programs. It also presents a threat to the global push for the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons. Moscow once joined the United States in imposing United Nations sanctions on countries like North Korea and Iran over their nuclear programs, but those days seem to be over.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think he\u2019ll ever sign up to that again,\u201d said Michael A. McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia and the director of Stanford University\u2019s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, referring to Mr. Putin. \u201cI think he\u2019s decided we\u2019re the enemy, the liberal international order that the United States anchors is over, and he wants to see its destruction.\u201d<\/p>\n Weeks before Mr. Putin\u2019s trip, Moscow used its veto power at the U.N. Security Council to disband a panel of U.N. experts that helped to enforce sanctions aimed at making it more difficult for North Korea to develop its nuclear arsenal.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In a column published in Rodong Sinmun, the North\u2019s main state-run newspaper, on the eve of his arrival, Mr. Putin denounced the United States\u2019 \u201cworldwide neocolonialist dictatorship\u201d and lauded Mr. Kim for resisting \u201cthe U.S. economic pressure, provocation, blackmail and military threats.\u201d<\/p>\n North Korea\u2019s economy has been devastated by sanctions, and Mr. Kim is intent on capitalizing on the partnership with Mr. Putin. The North\u2019s official Korean Central News Agency on Wednesday called the deepening ties between the two leaders \u201can engine for accelerating the building of a new multipolar world.\u201d Rodong said the two nations were \u201cin the same trench\u201d in the struggle against Washington and its allies.<\/p>\n Mr. Putin\u2019s visit to North Korea \u201cdemonstrates that our security is not regional. It\u2019s global,\u201d NATO\u2019s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said in Washington on Tuesday at a joint news conference<\/a> with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat happens in Europe matters for Asia, and what happens in Asia matters for us,\u201d Mr. Stoltenberg said. \u201cThis is clearly demonstrated in Ukraine, where Iran, North Korea, China are propping up, fueling Russia\u2019s war of aggression against Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Analysts were closely watching to see how much \u2014 and what types of \u2014 military and economic support Mr. Kim might get from Mr. Putin.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cHe\u2019s not just going to give away all the things that Putin wants for nothing, and I worry that this will be the beginning of military assistance that will lead to, you know, a modernization of\u201d North Korea\u2019s weapons systems, such as launch vehicles for nuclear weapons, Mr. McFaul said. \u201cI fear that now all bets could be off, and this is one area where Russia has real capabilities that could make the North Korean military-industrial complex stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n North Korea\u2019s military has long been ridiculed for its backward technologies and vast stockpile of outdated Soviet-era weaponry, such as artillery shells. But the fact that Mr. Putin was visiting Pyongyang for the first time since 2000 demonstrated how such old-fashioned munitions are among those that Russia most desperately needs in its war of attrition in Ukraine.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n