Russia warns against ‘intimidating’ North Korea

Russian President Vladimir Putin is urging foreign leaders to keep a cool head on North Korea.

Speaking in China, Putin condemned North Korea’s latest missile launch as “dangerous.” But he also cautioned against “intimidating” the country, comments almost certainly directed at Washington.

“I would like to confirm that we are categorically against the expansion of the club of nuclear states, including through the Korean Peninsula,” Putin told reporters. “We are against it and consider it counterproductive, damaging, dangerous.”

The comments came just days after North Korea fired a ballistic missile; it flew about 450 miles and for 30 minutes. Aerospace expert John Schilling told news agency Reuters that the test “represents a level of performance never before seen from a North Korean missile.”

According to The Associated Press, North Korea chose a high angle for the launch to “avoid neighbouring countries.”

If shot at a standard trajectory, experts say, the missile would have travelled about 2,500 miles, far enough to hit the U.S. Air Force base in Guam. It’s part of the Pyongyang government’s broader strategy to develop a long-range missile that could strike the United States.

Although Moscow has expressed concern about Pyongyang’s ever-broadening nuclear capabilities, it’s one of the few countries with diplomatic ties to North Korea.

In 2014, Moscow wrote off 90 per cent of Pyongyang’s $11 billion Soviet-era debt. More recently, Russia and North Korea have considered a slew of economic deals, including an expansion of railway links between the countries and advanced training opportunities for North Korean engineers at Russian universities.