Train service between Moscow and North Korea's Pyongyang to resume this month, says Russia

June 9 (Reuters) - Russia and North Korea plan to restart a direct passenger train service between Moscow and the North Korean capital Pyongyang this month for the first time since 2020, Russia's state-owned rail monopoly said on Monday.
Russian Railways said it had agreed with North Korea's railways ministry to resume a twice-monthly service between the two capitals on June 17, a journey it said took eight days and which, at over 10,000 km (6,213 miles), was the longest direct rail journey in the world.
Another service between Pyongyang and Khabarovsk, a Russian city close to China's northeastern border, will restart two days later.
The services will be operated by Korean State Railway, the state operator, and in the case of the Moscow-Pyongyang route will see a North Korean passenger railcar hitched to the regular Moscow-Vladivostok service and then re-attached to another train.
Passenger rail traffic between Russia and North Korea was suspended in February 2020 at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Moscow and Pyongyang have since ratcheted up cooperation, including in the military sphere since President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a comprehensive strategic partnership treaty last year.
North Korea confirmed in late April that it had sent more than 10,000 troops and weapons to Russia to assist in its war in Ukraine, aid which proved crucial for Moscow in recapturing Russia's western Kursk region from Ukraine.
The two countries already operate a passenger rail service between Vladivostok in Russia's Far East and Rason, a North Korean port city.
The nations are also linked by freight rail networks, although Russia does not disclose the size of the cargo traffic.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Sky News

2 hours ago

• Sky News

Regime change: Is Trump about to 'Make Iran Great Again'?

👉 Follow Trump100 on your podcast app 👈 The US bombs Iran. Three nuclear sites heavily hit. Cue condemnation from Iran - and promises of retribution. As the Iranian foreign minister heads to Moscow to meet Vladimir Putin and discuss what to do next, we ask: what has happened, why did the Trump administration decide to take action, what's the response domestically and internationally - and what on earth could happen next. If you've got a question you'd like the Trump100 team to answer, you can email it to trump100@ Don't forget, you can also watch all episodes on our YouTube channel.

Times

7 hours ago

• Times

Slain Wagner chief Prigozhin lives on as symbol of Putin's fragility

A few months before he died in a plane crash after his aborted mutiny against Moscow in the summer of 2023, Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner group of Russian mercenaries, laughed when asked about his attitude to death. 'We will all go to hell, but we will be the best in hell,' he said. Two years later, if Prigozhin is observing from the underworld, he is unlikely to approve of the fate that has since befallen his private mercenary group, which was once praised by President Putin for its role in the war in Ukraine. It has been largely dismantled and brought under the control of the Kremlin, while any mention of Prigozhin's name is now taboo on state television. Wagner's headquarters in St Petersburg, Prigozhin's home town, has also been closed down. 'What we understood as the Wagner Group ceased to exist at the very moment when the plane carrying Prigozhin crashed,' said Denis Korotkov, a Russian opposition journalist and co-author of Our Business is Death: The Story of the Wagner Group. 'All the scraps and fragments that remain from this organisation, what remains of its brand, are being used [by Moscow] for an array of purposes, but it can't be compared in any respect to what it used to be: Wagner is no longer an independent entity. It was able to exist solely because of Prigozhin's special relationship with Putin and with some others in power,' Korotkov said. Wagner after Prigozhin A catering tycoon who was once known as 'Putin's chef', Prigozhin rose from owning hot dog stands in St Petersburg in the early 1990s to worldwide notoriety. He attempted to meddle in the 2016 US presidential elections that brought President Trump to power and his thugs targeted Kremlin critics. His Concord company provided dinners for schools and nurseries in Moscow as well as the Russian defence ministry. But it was Wagner that made him a household name in Russia. Tens of thousands of convicts were freed from Russian prisons to swell Wagner's ranks at the front in Ukraine, often after a personal visit by Prigozhin, who served nine years for assault and robbery during the Soviet era. The group was instrumental in some of Russia's biggest successes of the war, including the capture of Bakhmut, the town in eastern Ukraine that became known as the 'meat grinder'. Prigozhin's rebellion in June 2023, during which his heavily armed mercenaries came within striking distance of Moscow, was sparked by a vicious row with Russian defence chiefs. It was an unprecedented c hallenge to Putin's rule and one that signalled the beginning of the end for Prigozhin. After retreating from the Russian capital having made a deal with the Kremlin, thousands of Wagner fighters headed to neighbouring Belarus, where they were allowed to set up training camps for new operations in Africa. The camps are long gone, although some of Wagner's former fighters are believed to be training the Belarusian security services as private contractors. Wagner also said last year that it was no longer in action in Ukraine. However, many returned to the front as part of the regular Russian army after Putin urged them to swear an oath of allegiance to Moscow. Pavel Prigozhin, the late Wagner leader's 27-year-old son, was believed to have inherited the leadership of the mercenary group, as well as more than £100 million in assets, yet there are few, if any, indications that he plays an active role in its remaining operations. A potent brand While there is no direct evidence that Putin was involved in Prigozhin's death, it is believed that his plane was blown up on the Kremlin's orders as revenge for his rebellion. All ten people on board, including Dmitry Utkin, Prigozhin's right-hand man, were killed when the plane plummeted to the ground in the Tver region, about 200 miles from Moscow in August 2023, exactly two months after the Wagner mutiny. Putin has suggested that the crash was caused by Prigozhin and other commanders drinking and using drugs while handling grenades on board the luxury jet. However, Marat Gabidullin, a former Wagner commander, told The Times that he had never seen Prigozhin or Utkin drink or take drugs. Despite the neutralisation of Wagner as an independent force, the group's name remains a rallying symbol for supporters of the war in Ukraine, both in Russia and in the West, said Candace Rondeaux, the author of Putin's Sledgehammer, a new book about Prigozhin and his mercenary group. 'The [Wagner] brand remains very potent, especially for young men who are disaffected, who are looking for a way to prove themselves,' she told Times Radio. Russia's GRU military intelligence service had sought to 'rebrand and relabel the Wagner Group' as an instrument for recruiting disaffected westerners for sabotage attacks, she added. This month two British men admitted setting fire to warehouses in London that were holding aid for Ukraine on behalf of the Wagner Group. Korotkov said, however, that it was extremely unlikely that there were any independent figures within Wagner who would be able to give the orders for such an operation. 'It's likely the brand is just being used by various [Russian] security structures,' he added. The scramble for Africa Three weeks before his death, Prigozhin shared a video address filmed — pointedly — in Africa, the jewel of the Wagner empire. Wearing camouflage and clutching a rifle, he told the camera: 'We are working, the temperature is 50 degrees — everything we love.' Shared on Wagner-linked Telegram channels, the footage was both a recruitment pitch and a bullish statement of intent. After Wagner's arrival in Africa in 2017, beginning in Sudan, it became a powerful tool of Russian influence. It offered military training, regime protection and anti-western disinformation that often outpaced even Moscow's ambitions. In return, Wagner was paid not just in cash but in gold and mining concessions — a model so lucrative it helped bankroll Russia's war in Ukraine and prompted the US to designate it an organised crime group. After Prigozhin's death, Moscow moved quickly to replace his mercenaries with the newly minted Africa Corps, under GRU control. Commanders were ordered to swear loyalty to the state or face consequences. By January 2024, Africa Corps had boots on the ground — its first confirmed deployment was to Burkina Faso. The shift is more than cosmetic. Wagner offered deniability; Africa Corps signals a bolder, state-backed approach. However, Russians show no sign of forgetting Prigozhin or Wagner: memorials and even statues have been unveiled across Russia, while online shops sell Wagner-themed children's toys, pillows, cups and T-shirts. The memory of his rebellion, while unsuccessful, has also provided a shred of hope to Russia's exiled opposition movement. 'As long as Putin is in power, we are unlikely to find out what exactly happ­ened to Prigozhin. But does it really matter? The question of who and when someone will decide to follow in his footsteps is much more important,' said Daria Firyan, a presenter for the Khodorkovsky Live opposition media outlet. 'Such rebellions are possible … those people who were sent to Kyiv yesterday can turn around tomorrow and head to Moscow. And the authorities will not be able to do anything.'

Times

12 hours ago

• Times

Who are Iran's allies — and will any help after the US strikes?

Iran's foreign minister will hold a 'serious consultation' with President Putin in Moscow on Monday after US strikes on its nuclear facilities. Seyed Abbas Araghchi said the American attacks were 'outrageous and will have everlasting consequences'. Russia has described them as a violation of international law. Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president, accused President Trump of starting 'another war' and said the prospect of a US ground operation is now 'looming on the horizon'. 'And now we can say it outright, the future production of nuclear weapons will continue,' he said. 'A number of countries are ready to directly supply Iran with their own nuclear warheads.'The US launched co-ordinated airstrikes overnight against three Iranian nuclear sites — Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan — in what Trump described as a 'very successful attack'. The strikes, widely anticipated after days of mounting tension, came after repeated warnings from Moscow that any direct US action on Iranian soil would amount to a dangerous escalation. Putin is yet to comment publicly on the strikes but despite fiery rhetoric from members of his government, there has been no signal that Russia is preparing a military response. Since Israel began attacking Iran on June 13 in an operation dubbed 'Rising Lion', Russian action has been limited to condemnation and an offer to mediate between the two last week's St Petersburg economic forum, Putin reiterated that Iran had not asked Russia for any military assistance and emphasised that mutual co-operation did not include defence obligations. The 20‑year strategic co-operation deal signed last year between Moscow and Tehran excluded a mutual defence clause. Iran's other allies and its neighbours were quick to condemn the US action, warning that it could precipitate all-out war in the Middle East, but they also stopped short of offering any concrete support. China 'strongly condemned' the attack on Iran, saying it violated 'the purposes and principles of the UN charter and international law', and called for a ceasefire. Lebanon's Hezbollah, once Iran's most powerful proxy, said on Sunday that it had no immediate plans to retaliate. The militants, themselves decimated after a year and a half of war with Israel, have not launched a single attack since the operation Houthis, in Yemen, offered the strongest pledge of action, saying they supported a previous statement from their armed wing, which threatened US naval vessels in the Red Sea in solidarity. Specific details of what Iran will request from Russia during the forthcoming talks have not been officially disclosed by either government, but Araghchi could seek to secure the Kremlin's political or diplomatic backing. Experts said that with resources tied up with the war in Ukraine, Russia is unlikely to be preparing to come to Tehran's rescue. Putin did little to stop the advance of rebels in Syria in December last year who toppled a key Russian ally, Bashar al-Assad, from power. 'Putin will of course fire out a lot of aggressive rhetoric … but he can't do much, ' said Ian Garner, a historian and academic focused on Russian culture and war propaganda. 'It will likely be a case that Putin's bark is very loud but his bite is about as toothless as it gets.' Fyodor Lukyanov, head of Russia's council on foreign and defence policy, which advises the Kremlin, said that Putin's statements in recent days show he is extremely cautious. 'He has never expressed any assessment of one side or the other, only about the need for negotiations and a peaceful solution,' he said. 'Iran may have expected more. It has supplied the Kremlin with thousands of drones and missiles used in the war against Ukraine.'