For many international observers, the footage of Vladimir Putin welcoming Kim Jong Un to the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Russian Far East on 13 September, was evidence of how far the Russian leader has fallen since his invasion of Ukraine. “It’s another indicator of the desperation of President Putin,” remarked the former British defence minister Ben Wallace in an interview on CNN. “We have a saying in England: ‘By your friends you shall be judged.’ And I think it just shows that Putin’s circle of friendship is an ever-decreasing circle.”
It was a fair point. Putin’s international stature has been drastically diminished in the last 18 months. Where previously he was a fixture at major global summits, the Russian president is now wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court and skipped this year’s Brics and G20 meetings, presumably for fear of arrest. His main friends now appear to be Iran, China and North Korea – an emerging axis of autocracy. Being forced to turn to Pyongyang for its outdated and notoriously unreliable stores of artillery ammunition should, at a minimum, be seen as proof that his “special military operation” in Ukraine is not going according to plan.
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