Russian President Vladimir V. Putin wrapped up an official visit to one ally, North Korea, and left for another, Vietnam, early Thursday local time, hoping to boost key partnerships in the region as he winds down a long war in Ukraine. have been.
Mr. Putin's war in Ukraine has isolated him from the West, and his need for military equipment to fight that war has drawn him closer to North Korea and its leader, Kim Jong-un. The two leaders have bonded over their shared historic rival, the United States, and revived a Cold War-era mutual defense pact between their nations on Wednesday.
In Vietnam, by contrast, Mr Putin – who has landed in Hanoi, according to Russian state media – will meet with officials who have recently developed closer ties with Washington. But Moscow has long been Hanoi's main source of arms, and Mr Putin is keen to retain that position.
It is Mr Putin's fifth visit to Vietnam and follows visits last year by President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, two leaders who sought assurances from Hanoi that he was not siding with the other.
For Vietnam, Mr. Putin's visit will be an opportunity to strengthen ties with Russia, its most important defense partner. Although it has improved relations with the United States, Vietnam was finding secret ways to buy Russian military equipment last year in violation of U.S. sanctions.
Washington has reprimanded Hanoi for inviting the Russian leader, saying that “no country should give Putin a platform to promote his war of aggression and otherwise allow him to normalize his atrocities.” It should be given.
This week, Vietnam's newly installed president, Tu Lam, told the local Russian envoy that Hanoi “always considers Russia one of the top priority partners in its foreign policy.”
What to know about relations between Moscow and Hanoi.
Russia and Vietnam have deep military ties.
In 1950, the Soviet Union was among the first countries to give diplomatic recognition to what was then the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, or North Vietnam. Over the decades, Moscow became Vietnam's largest donor, as Hanoi fought its wars against France and the United States.
Defense ties have underpinned many ties between the two countries, which also share communist ideology over the years. Mr. Putin arrived in Vietnam with his new defense minister, Andrei R. Belousov, stressing how security matters were central to the visit.
According to Nguyen The Phuong, who studies Vietnamese military affairs at the University of New South Wales in Australia, Russian equipment represents about 60 percent to 70 percent of Vietnam's defense arsenal. Russia has supplied Vietnam with coastal defense missile systems, 6kg class submarines, fighter jets and many lethal weapons.
According to Mr Phuong, almost all of Vietnam's ships come from Russia. He added that Russia's T-90 tanks, the last known purchase of Russian weapons by Vietnam in 2016, are the backbone of Vietnam's armored forces. This means that Vietnam is still going to be dependent on Russia for years to come.
Vietnam has looked beyond Russia for weapons.
But the imposition of Western sanctions on Moscow has raised concerns in Hanoi about Russia's reliability as a supplier, and has made it difficult for Vietnam to continue dealings with Russia as it engages with the West.
Many Vietnamese leaders are also aware of the Russian military's struggle against Ukraine – footage shows T-90 tanks being blown up by drones used by Ukraine. They are also aware of Russia's deepening ties with China, which they see as threatened by a long-standing territorial dispute in the South China Sea.
In recent months, it has turned to countries such as South Korea, Japan and the Czech Republic as alternative sources of weapons. It has also tried to build its own defense industry. It has looked to India, another former Soviet ally, to retool some of its weapons.
The U.S. has been offering more weapons to Vietnam in recent months, with top officials traveling to the country. But analysts say senior officials in Vietnam's defense leadership are skeptical of Washington. They are reluctant to tie their fortunes to a country where arms sales must go through a Congress that could make the deal conditional on human rights.
Both countries have joint ventures in oil business.
Russia has a significant stake in Vietnam's lucrative oil and gas sector. Vietsovpetro, a joint venture between Russia's Zarubezhneft and Vietnam's state-owned PetroVietnam, operates Vietnam's largest oil field, Bach Ho.
Profits from Vietsovpetro have generated millions of dollars for both Russia and Vietnam. Zarubezhneft and Gazprom, another Russian state energy company, are also involved in oil exploration projects in Vietnam.
The plans for Moscow come at a time when Russia's oil and gas exports to Europe have plummeted following sanctions imposed by the European Union. But they have angered Beijing because they are in waters it claims as part of its territory.
Before the coronavirus pandemic, Vietnam was also a particularly attractive destination for Russian tourists. In 2019, Russia sent the sixth highest number of tourists to Vietnam of any country, after the United States. But numbers fell during the pandemic and fell further after Russia suspended direct flights to Vietnam in 2022 following its invasion of Ukraine. Direct flights resumed this year.
Mr Putin is seen as popular among the Vietnamese brass.
Beginning in the 1950s, thousands of Vietnamese Communist Party officials, top businessmen, doctors, teachers, and soldiers were trained in the Soviet Union and Russia. The current party chief Nguyen Phu Trong is also on the list.
But some felt that these deep ties had been neglected by the last Soviet leader, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, and the first Russian president, Boris N. Yeltsin.
“Vietnamese people feel that Gorbachev abandoned Vietnam in the 1980s in an attempt to improve relations with China. Yeltsin barely paid attention to Vietnam in the 90s,” ISEAS in Singapore said. “When Putin was in power in 2000, it gave him a lot of face,” said Ian Storey, a senior fellow at the Yusuf Isaac Institute. So the Vietnamese are grateful for that.
He added that the Vietnamese leadership likes Mr. Putin because “he has put Vietnam-Russia relations back on track.”
Paul Son And Damien Cave Cooperation reporting.