Vladimir Putin has arrived in Vietnam for a state visit aimed at propping up international support for Russia as the country faces mounting isolation over its war on Ukraine.
The Russian leader was greeted by dignitaries upon his arrival in Hanoi as soldiers in white dress uniforms stood to attention.
He had travelled from North Korea where he and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a deal pledging mutual aid in the event of war.
The strategic pact could mark the strongest link between Moscow and Pyongyang since the end of the Cold War. It comes as both face escalating standoffs with the West.
Putin is scheduled to meet Vietnam’s most powerful politician, Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, the new President To Lam and other officials. The trip has resulted in a sharp rebuke from the US Embassy in Vietnam.
A lot has changed since Putin’s last visit to the South East Asian country in 2017. Russia faces a raft of US-led sanctions for its invasion of Ukraine.
In 2023, the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Putin over alleged war crimes. The Kremlin rejected it as “null and void”, stressing Moscow doesn’t recognise the court’s jurisdiction.
Nguyen Khac Giang, an analyst at Singapore’s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, said Putin’s recent visits to China and now North Korea and Vietnam are attempts to break Russia’s international isolation.
Washington and its allies have expressed growing concerns over a possible arms arrangement in which Pyongyang provides Moscow with badly needed munitions for its use in Ukraine, in exchange for economic assistance and technology transfers which could enhance the threat posed by Kim’s nuclear weapons and missile program.
Both countries deny accusations of weapons transfers, which would violate multiple UN Security Council sanctions Russia previously endorsed.
Giang said Russia is important to Vietnam because it is the biggest supplier of military equipment to the Southeast Asian nation and Russian oil exploration technologies help maintain its sovereignty claims in the contested South China Sea.
Prashanth Parameswaran, a fellow at Wilson Center’s Asia Program, said: “Russia is signalling that it is not isolated in Asia despite the Ukraine war, and Vietnam is reinforcing a key traditional relationship even as it also diversifies ties with newer partners.”
Hanoi and Moscow have had diplomatic relations since 1950 and this year marks 30 years of a treaty establishing “friendly relations” between Russia and Vietnam,
Evidence of this long relationship and its influence can be seen in Vietnamese cities, such as the capital where the many Soviet-style apartment blocks are now dwarfed by skyscrapers.
A statue of Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Soviet Union, stands in a park where kids skateboard every evening. Many of the Communist Party’s top leadership in Vietnam studied in Soviet universities, including party chief Trong.
In an article written for Nhan Dan, the official newspaper of Vietnam’s Communist Party, Putin vowed to deepen ties between Moscow and Hanoi, hailing Vietnam as a “strong supporter of a fair world order based on international law, on the principles of equality of all states and non-interference in their domestic affairs”.
He also thanked Vietnamese “friends” for their “balanced position” on the Ukrainian crisis, in the article released by the Kremlin.
Meanwhile, Vietnam’s policy of “bamboo diplomacy” — a phrase coined by Trong referring to the flexibility of bamboo plant, bending but not breaking in the shifting headwinds of global geopolitics — is being increasingly tested.
A manufacturing powerhouse and an increasingly important player in global supply chains, Vietnam played host to both US President Joe Biden and the leader of rival China, Xi Jinping, in 2023.
Vietnam has remained neutral on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But neutrality is getting trickier, with the US Embassy in Hanoi criticising Putin’s visit, saying “no country should give Putin a platform to promote his war of aggression and otherwise allow him to normalize his atrocities”.
If Putin is allowed to travel freely it “could normalise Russia’s blatant violations of international law”, according to the statement.
Parameswaran said Vietnam needs support from the US to advance its economic ambitions and diversify its defence ties, adding: “It has to carefully calibrate what it does with Russia in an environment of rising tensions between Washington and Moscow.”
Bilateral trade between Russia and Vietnam was at £2.83billion ($3.6bn) in 2023, compared to £134.4bn ($171bn) with China and £87.2bn ($111bn) with the US.
Since the early 2000s, Russia accounted for around 80 percent of Vietnam’s arms imports. This has been declining over the years due to Vietnamese attempts to diversify its supplies. Giang said for Vietnam to entirely wean itself off Russia will take time.
