Moscow:
Russian President Vladimir Putin invited North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to view his Russian-made limousine ahead of their summit on Wednesday, giving up the spacious backseat to his guest.
Putin and Kim inspected the space launch facilities at the modern Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Russian Far East ahead of their summit on Wednesday, state TV footage showed.
As they walked to the main complex and had a casual conversation, they came upon Putin’s presidential Aurus limousine parked in the driveway, and the Russian president gestured to the vehicle as Kim stood in apparent curiosity.
Putin invited Kim to sit in the backseat and walked around and slid next to the North Korean leader, who sat beaming.
North Korea’s KCNA news agency said Thursday: “Putin showed his private car to Kim Jong Un before having a warm conversation.”
The Aurus Senat limousine was developed by the Russian state car institute, known by the abbreviation NAMI.
Putin first drove the Aurus during his fourth inauguration in 2018, ditching his old Mercedes in a patriotic message of self-sufficiency.
Kim drove to the space station on Wednesday in his personal Maybach limousine, aboard the special train on which he traveled from Pyongyang with a large entourage.
Kim is believed to be a car enthusiast and has been seen driving several luxury cars, including several Mercedes models, a Lexus SUV and a Rolls-Royce Phantom.
These vehicles are among luxury goods that UN member states are banned from exporting to North Korea and are believed to have been smuggled in.
German manufacturer Daimler, which makes the Maybach, has said it has no idea how the vehicle and other Mercedes cars were brought north and that it has had no formal contacts with Pyongyang.
North Korea has a weak auto industry with a handful of homegrown brands building sedans and passenger buses. The most prominent is Pyeonghwa Motors, founded as a joint venture with investments from the South Korean company of the same name.
In 2018, then-US President Donald Trump gave Kim a glimpse of the US presidential limousine known as “The Beast” during a break during their first summit in Singapore.
That time Kim couldn’t climb in.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)