Putin-Kim 'Bromance' Sparks Avalanche of Jokes, Memes

Russian President Vladimir Putin's historic two-day visit to see his North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang has sparked an avalanche of jokes and memes about the pair's "bromance."

Putin visited North Korea on Tuesday, marking his first visit to the country in 24 years. The two nations have deepened their ties since Putin launched an invasion of neighboring Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

The pair signed a new strategic partnership agreement on Wednesday that requires both nations to use all available means to provide immediate military assistance in the event of war. Kim hailed the deal as the "strongest-ever treaty" signed between Pyongyang and Moscow, while Putin said it provides "mutual assistance in the event of aggression" against either country.

The pair presented each other with a lavish array of gifts, and Kim personally awarded Putin with the Kim Il Sung Order, North Korea's higher state decoration, Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.

Putin was given the award as a "token of boundless respect and confidence of our government and people to him, who has made a special contribution to the development of relations between the two countries," KCNA said.

Reacting to the news, Tonya Levchuk, co-founder of Liberty Ukraine Foundation, joked on X, formerly Twitter: "What an ultimate bromance between Moscow and Pyongyang!"

Others reacted to an item Kim gifted Putin—a portrait of Putin against a black backdrop depicting the Kremlin, St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow and fireworks.

"Did Kim Jong Un present Putin with a tombstone? Or is that a painting? Hard to understand," wrote Anton Gerashchenko, a former adviser to Ukraine's minister of internal affairs.

Another X user wrote: "I understand everything, but why did Un give Putin a tombstone?"

"Damn, Kim gave Putin a portrait of Putin, which literally looks like a mirror that the evil king from the first Shrek constantly consults with (in the case of Putin, apparently, this is also not far from the truth - he is his own best adviser)," Russian journalist Ilya Shepelin wrote on X.

Others poked fun at a photo of Kim and Putin riding a Mercedes-Benz vehicle in Pyongyang.

"This picture says it all. They are showing off hostility to the US and the West by riding a Mercedes made in Germany," wrote Andrei Kozyrev, Russian foreign minister from 1990 to 1996. "They are backward villains exploiting the West's lack of will to block 2-purpose tech exports to them and supply high-tech arms to [Ukraine]."

Konstantin Sonin, a Russia analyst and economics professor at the University of Chicago, said on X that he "cannot imagine a future Russia, in which this is not a deeply embarrassing photo."

"In his bubble, Putin is not apparently aware how he looks begging the absurdly pathetic regime for military help against Ukraine," Sonin added.

"A bit ridiculous, isn't it?" Olexander Scherba, a Ukrainian diplomat who worked as the ambassador of Ukraine to Austria from 2014 to 2021, said of the photo.

Some X users were also quick to draw comparisons between a photo of Kim and Putin during a meeting this week, and memes of Putin's body language while he listened to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko speak in Sochi, Russia, in 2020.

Newsweek has contacted the Russian Foreign Ministry for comment by email.

The office of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol condemned the new bilateral agreement between Russia and North Korea.

"It's absurd that two parties with a history of launching wars of invasion—the Korean War and the war in Ukraine—are now vowing mutual military cooperation on the premise of a preemptive attack by the international community that will never happen," his office said in a statement.

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