(COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.) — The shooter who killed five and injured over a dozen more at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 2022 is expected to accept a plea deal Tuesday and be sentenced in connection with federal hate crimes charges.
Anderson Lee Aldrich is expected to plead guilty to each of the 74 charges of violating provisions of the Matthew Shepard And James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 as well as gun crimes in the Club Q shooting, according to court documents filed on Jan. 9.
Federal prosecutors are recommending a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, to be followed by a 190-year sentence of imprisonment, according to court documents filed on June 4. Prosecutors said in a Jan. 9 filing they would not be seeking the death penalty.
The sentencing recommendation details Aldrich’s alleged past use of online platforms “to express anti-gay and anti-transgender views,” use of anti-gay slurs and harassment of a gay co-worker in the years preceding the attack.
In addition to the federal charges, Aldrich was already sentenced to over 2,000 years in state prison in June 2023 after pleading guilty to five counts of murder in the first degree and 46 counts of attempted murder in the first degree. Aldrich pleaded no contest to two bias-motivated crimes.
Aldrich opened fire in Club Q with an AR-15 style rifle and was wearing a tactical vest with ballistic plates and had “at least two additional magazines loaded with ammunition,” on the night of Nov. 19, 2022. The club had just hosted a drag show that night as one of several events to honor Transgender Day of Remembrance on Nov. 20, according to court documents.
Aldrich was only stopped after two patrons forcibly removed their gun.
Daniel Davis Aston, Kelly Loving, Derrick Rump, Ashley Paugh and Raymond Green Vance were killed in the attack.
(NEW YORK) — A person of interest is in custody in connection with the rape of a 13-year-old girl in a Queens, New York park last week, police sources told ABC News.
The person, an Ecuadorian migrant who entered the U.S. in 2021, was picked up overnight after community members recognized him from a photo and video released by police, according to the police sources. The person was taken to the hospital for evaluation.
The individual has several prior arrests since entering the U.S., sources said.
The sexual assault took place at about 3:30 p.m. Thursday when two schoolmates, a 13-year-old male and a 13-year-old female, were approached by a man in Kissena Park. The man flashed what police described as a “large machete-style knife” and forced the 13-year-old victims to walk for several minutes into a wooded area.
The individual then forcibly removed the cellphones of both victims, tied the boy and girl’s wrists together with a shoelace and sexually assaulted the female victim before fleeing the location on foot in an unknown direction.
The two 13-year-olds were taken to the hospital in stable condition after they returned to school to explain what happened.
Investigators recovered the shoelace used to tie the children’s hands together, along with a water bottle the suspect left behind.
The individual being sought was described as a Hispanic male, approximately 5-foot-5, in his 20s, with curly hair and last seen wearing red sneakers and carrying a green backpack. He appeared to have dental braces and had a tattoo of a boar or a bull with red eyes on his chest.
“The entire police department is focused on getting justice for this young survivor,” NYPD Chief of Detectives Joe Kenny said last week during a press conference.
(LONDON) — Almost 150 civilians have been killed since the beginning of June in the Democratic Republic of Congo, local authorities announced.
It comes following a spike in attacks by the Islamic State group-affiliated Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) in the east of the Central African nation.
At least 42 people were killed in the latest attack, in the village of Mayikengo in Lubero, east of North Kivu province, Africa Union Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat said in a statement on Monday.
Mahamat said he learned with “dismay of the multiplication of massacres of innocent civilian population” in the Beni and Lubero regions, sending condolences to families of the victims.
The ADF rebel group is one of the “more than 100” armed groups operating in the DRC, and has been present in the country since the 1990s, long before it established ties with IS in 2018, according to the U.S. Sate Department.
The spate of attacks by the armed group has contributed to a new wave of escalating violence in the east of the DRC, according to Bruno Lemarquis, the U.N.’s local humanitarian coordinator. He expressed “grave concern” over the “alarming deterioration” of the situation.
“If this violence persists, it risks further worsening the already precarious humanitarian situation in the provinces of Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu, where more than 900,000 newly displaced people have been registered between January and April 2024, bringing the total number of displaced people in these three provinces to over 5.6 million, and a total of 7.3 million in the country,” Lemarquis said.
At least one U.N. agency worker was injured by fire after a patrol was “blocked and attacked several times,” according to Vivian van de Perre, deputy special representative of the secretary-general for protection and operations at the U.N. Peacekeeping agency.
Pope Francis appealed on Sunday for an end to the violence, calling on the international community to do “everything possible” to safeguard civilian lives.
That appeal echoed one made last week by Lemarquis, of the U.N.
“I call on all armed groups and their supporters to respect their obligations under international humanitarian law and human rights, by protecting civilians, ensuring unhindered humanitarian access, and allowing humanitarian operations to proceed so that organizations can provide vital assistance to people in need,” Lemarquis said.
(NEW YORK) — Apple has announced it is scrapping Apple Pay Later, the company’s buy now, pay later service that launched last year.
In a statement, Apple said users instead will be able to apply for installment loans via credit cards, debit cards and lenders when checking out with Apple Pay later this year.
“With the introduction of this new global installment loan offering, we will no longer offer Apple Pay Later in the U.S.,” the company said in the statement. “Our focus continues to be on providing our users with access to easy, secure and private payment options with Apple Pay, and this solution will enable us to bring flexible payments to more users, in more places across the globe, in collaboration with Apple Pay enabled banks and lenders.”
Apple introduced Apple Pay Later last March. The service allowed users to split purchases into four interest-free installments, paid over six weeks. Users were allowed to apply for Apple Pay Later loans of up to $1,000.
The exterior of the Boeing Company headquarters is seen on March 25, 2024 in Arlington, Virginia. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Sen. Richard Blumenthal’s office on Tuesday said a current Boeing employee has come forward as a whistleblower, an announcement that comes hours before the airplane manufacturer’s chief executive is scheduled to testify on Capitol Hill.
The senator’s office identified the employee as Sam Mohawk, a quality assurance inspector for Boeing in Renton, Washington.
Mohawk alleges that Boeing is cutting corners by losing track of parts that have been labeled as non-conforming or not up to design standards, according to Blumenthal. Sometimes these parts get a second chance because they can be fixed or were mislabeled, but often they should be discarded. Still, the parts sometimes end up in newly built airplanes, Mohawk said, according to the senator.
“He said that he has been told by his supervisors to conceal this evidence from the FAA, and that he is being retaliated against as well,” Blumenthal said in a statement.
A Boeing spokesperson said the company had received on Monday evening the documents supplied to Blumenthal by the whistleblower. The company is reviewing the claims now, the spokesperson said on Tuesday.
“We continuously encourage employees to report all concerns as our priority is to ensure the safety of our airplanes and the flying public,” the spokesperson said.
The latest whistleblower is stepping forward as Boeing CEO David Calhoun prepares to sit for a Senate hearing on his company’s “broken safety culture” on Tuesday afternoon. Previous whistleblowers have accused the Arlington, Virginia-headquartered company of cutting corners on safety practices as it builds aircraft.
Blumenthal in his opening statement during Tuesday’s hearing is expected to press Calhoun on whether the executive has made progress turning the company around.
The senator will mention the incident in January when a door plug blew out of an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 shortly after takeoff. He’ll say that the “façade quite literally blew off the hollow shell that had been Boeing’s promises to the world,” according to excerpts of his prepared remarks viewed by ABC News.
“Mr. Calhoun, you were brought in turn this company around,” Blumenthal is expected to say, according to his prepared remarks. “But instead of asking what has caused Boeing’s safety culture to erode, you and your colleagues in the C-suite have deflected blame, looked the other way, and catered to your shareholders instead.”
Calhoun in January said Boeing was “accountable for what happened” during the Alaska flight.
“Whatever the specific cause of the accident might turn out to be, an event like this must simply not happen on an airplane that leaves one of our factories,” he said at the time. “We simply must be better. Our customers deserve better.”
(NEW YORK) — Heat alerts have been issued for Tuesday in at least 19 states in the Midwest and Northeast, with some states expecting to see their hottest days in 30 years.
Areas in the Ohio Valley and up to Maine could see their warmest weather in three decades.
New York City is expecting a five-day heat wave with temperatures above 90 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.
The city hasn’t experienced five consecutive days above 90 degrees since June 1988.
The heat wave brought record highs to at least six cities on Tuesday. Toledo, Ohio, hit 99; Chicago, Illinois, hit 97; Cleveland, Ohio, hit 96; Milwaukee, Wisconsin, hit 94; and Erie, Pennsylvania, hit 91. The sixth city, Syracuse, New York, touched a record 94 degrees on Tuesday and is expected on Wednesday to climb to 97.
The prolonged record heat is forecast to continue from the Ohio Valley and eastern Great Lakes to the I-95 corridor into this weekend.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden will announce on Tuesday two new executive actions that could provide relief to thousands of undocumented immigrants who have been in the country for several years.
The first action aims to streamline the process through which undocumented spouses and undocumented children of U.S. citizens apply for lawful permanent residence.
The policy will allow noncitizen spouses married to U.S. citizens to apply to live and work in the United States legally without having to leave the country. Noncitizen children of applicants would also be eligible for protection.
Under current laws, some undocumented migrants must first leave the U.S. and apply for legal residency from their home countries when they marry a citizen. In some cases, those migrants are barred from returning to the U.S. for up to 10 years.
To be eligible for the program, noncitizen spouses must have been in the U.S. for at least 10 years as of June 17, 2024, without having been previously legally admitted into the country, or paroled into the country. They also must have been legally married to a U.S. citizen as of the same date and must also be deemed not to pose a threat to public safety or national security. If found eligible, the spouses would be given three years to apply for legal permanent residence.
The Department of Homeland Security estimates that up to half a million spouses could be eligible for the program, and approximately 50,000 children of these spouses would also be protected.
“President Biden is taking an incredibly important action by helping the spouses of U.S. citizens get a path to citizenship. This balanced approach, combined with Biden’s border security actions, is much more popular than Trump’s mass deportation plan,” Kerri Talbot, Executive Director of The Immigration Hub, told ABC News in a statement.
The president is also expected to announce a new action that will allow some undocumented immigrants, including some DACA recipients and so-called “Dreamers,” to obtain employment-based nonimmigrant visas quicker, senior administration officials said.
To be eligible, applicants must have graduated from an accredited higher education institution in the United States and have a high-skilled job offer from a U.S. employer in their field of study.
Tuesday’s announcement comes just two weeks after President Biden implemented an executive action that restricts the number of migrants who can seek asylum in between ports of entry when migrant encounters at the border reach more than a daily rate of 2,500 for a week straight.
Some members of his own party denounced the asylum cap. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit to challenge the order last week.
Rep. Nanette Diaz Barragán, chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, told ABC News in an interview that caucus members had met with the President at the White House in May and called for the protections announced today.
“I think it’s a happy day for many immigrant families across America. I think there’s going to be people crying tears of joy paired with some sighs of relief. This is a significant executive action by President Biden and the Hispanic Caucus has been for months encouraging and advocating for the President and administration to provide these protections,” the congresswoman said.
(GREENWICH, Conn.) — For years, Jose Dominguez, 50, had wanted to donate blood, feeling it was part of his civic duty.
But he was restricted by rules set in place by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that did not allow sexually active gay men from donating.
That finally changed in May 2023, when the FDA dropped all restrictions specific to gay and bisexual men donating blood, moving to a new blood donation risk assessment tool that is the same for every donor regardless of how they identify, which rolled out in August 2023.
In March of this year, Dominguez finally donated blood for the first time, and he did so with his husband, Craig Burdett. For Burdett, 62, it was the first time he had donated blood since 1997, when he began openly identifying as gay.
“I was grinning just from ear to ear, just because of the fact that we were able to do this,” Dominguez, who is the head of the American Red Cross Long Island chapter, told ABC News. “I’ve never done it before, and I was getting to do it with my husband.”
“This is something that we had talked about along during our relationship and anytime somebody said they donated blood, I’m like, ‘That is such a privilege. It is such a privilege to be able to do that and one day, we will,'” he continued. “But it was just like, ‘Whoa, this is so cool. It’s finally happening.'”
So, did the rule change bring in more donors? Blood donation organizations say although it’s a bit too soon to tell, early data seems to indicate it did make a difference.
New policy allowing gay and bisexual men to donate In the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, blood donations were not able to screen for HIV, which led to some cases of HIV via transfusion. This led to the FDA instituting a lifetime ban on gay and bisexual men from donating blood as well as women who have sex with men who have sex with men.
In 2015, the blanket ban was repealed, but the FDA placed restrictions on men who have sex with men, saying they could donate if they were abstinent from sex for at least one year. In 2020, this was shortened to a period of 90 days of abstinence.
In 2023, the FDA announced it would no longer be issuing blanket bans due to sexual orientation and instead screen potential donors on their risk of contracting and transmitting HIV, with the policy going into effect in August.
At the time, the federal health agency said it would use “gender-inclusive, individual risk-based questions” without compromising “the safety or availability of the blood supply.”
Questionnaires ask all donors about new or multiple sexual partners in the past three months. Those who have had a new sexual partner or multiple partners in the past three months and a history of anal sex during that time period will be deferred. Those taking medications to treat or prevent HIV infection will also be deferred, but LGBTQ+ advocacy groups say the new FDA rules are an important step in the right direction. The new blood donation risk assessment is the same for every donor regardless of how they identify.
‘I’m being ostracized’ Burdett, who runs a freelance web design business, grew up with a mother who was a regular blood donor due to a rare blood type, though he can’t remember what type exactly. He said she would get calls in the middle of the night to donate and, when she did, she would take him and his younger brother along with her.
“She taught us that giving blood was an important part of being part of the community,” he said. “You give blood because that’s an easy way to give back and to support your community. And so, I grew up giving blood every eight to 10 weeks, whenever I remembered that it was time, I gave blood until I came out as a gay man in the mid-90s.”
The last time Burdett donated blood was in 1997. At the time, the FDA still had a lifetime ban for blood donations from gay and bisexual men.
Not being able to do so because of sexual orientation made him feel excluded from a community he’d been part of for so many years.
“When I couldn’t give blood again, I felt like I was being pushed out the community,” Burdett said. “It felt like I lost something.”
Dominguez said that growing up, he had many family members in hospitals due to health problems. When he would visit, he would see people donating blood, but he knew he couldn’t, and it made him feel “ostracized.” Dominguez said he never attempted to donate.
“Of course, there were regulations, FDA regulations that were set in place,” he said. “But I remember in college, when I finally was able to do it, and being a gay male, I couldn’t because of the restrictions…I’m thinking, ‘Oh, my God, I’m being ostracized.'”
When the couple first heard during the COVID-19 pandemic that the FDA was considering rolling out a new policy that did away with most deferrals, Dominguez was optimistic, but Burdett was doubtful.
“I raised a skeptical eyebrow, like that’s not gonna happen,” Burdett said. “They’re gonna have some rule like you can’t have had sex for six months. … So when it was that we really [could give] blood, I was really surprised — surprised and super happy.”
People returning after being deferred Blood donation organizations said early data indicates that the policy has made a difference — bringing back donors who were previously unable to give blood.
Since the American Red Cross implemented the FDA’s individual donor assessment last summer, about 8.5% of more than 2,000 people with the most recent three-month deferral on their donor record returned to donate in the first five months after the policy change, the organization told ABC News.
Local organizations report similar results. New York Blood Center (NYBC) said between 240 and 250 people deferred under the 90-day policy have since returned to donate blood.
Andrea Cefarelli, senior vice president for NYBC, told ABC News it’s been less than a year since the new policy and people are still learning they are now eligible to donate, so that number should increase.
“What we would never know is someone that … knew from friends or from media coverage that they were not eligible and then comes in and donates. We wouldn’t have that figure that [they] sort of self-deferred before,” she said. “So, is it making an impact? I’m sure that it is.”
OneBlood — which has service areas in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina — told ABC News that of 7,092 people who deferred under the previous one-year and three-month deferral periods, 902 returned to donate under the new policy over the last 10 months, equating to 1,334 donations.
While there are people like Dominguez and Burdett who donated blood after becoming eligible under the new donor assessment, they acknowledged some gay and bisexual men may still be angry that they were prevented from donating blood previously, even if they were practicing safe sex at the time.
“There were a lot of hurt feelings in the gay community about when gay men were banned from giving blood,” Burdett said. ‘There’s still a group of gay men about my age who hold a lot of animosity about it.”
“I understand the panic in the early 80s…But there are a lot of folks who are not ready to forgive and forget. As we meet them, and talk to them, encourage them to give blood because it’s part of being a community and…you’re giving to your neighbor,” he added.
Burdett and Dominguez say they plan to donate again as soon as possible and want to encourage conversations with other members of the LGBTQ+ community to consider donating if they haven’t already.
“I think we’re in the perfect month to start this conversation,” Burdett said of Pride Month. “There are a lot of Pride parades going on. So, I would encourage anyone who accepts blood to be present and be at those events and to do the education and let people know, pamphlets, flyers, tell them folks that gay men can give blood, and I would suspect that would be helpful.”
(WASHINGTON) — High-stakes primaries in two Virginia congressional districts Tuesday night will test the enduring influence of former President Donald Trump on voters of both parties.
In Virginia’s 5th district, Rep. Bob Good, leader of the anti-Republican-establishment House Freedom Caucus, is running up against a challenger bolstered by the endorsements of Trump and former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy. On Tuesday, voters will signal which brand of conservatism they prefer.
And with Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger vacating her 7th district seat to run for governor, former Army colonel Yevgeny “Eugene” Vindman, who rose to prominence during Trump’s first impeachment trial, has moved to the top of a crowded field of local electeds by highlighting his role in protecting democracy from the former president.
The Republican primary in Virginia’s 5th district Good’s willingness to push against his party’s establishment has garnered him political power in Congress, but it also brought him a tough primary challenge, and has shown a schism within the more conservative wing of the party.
Good, who was first elected to the House in 2020, is facing state Sen. John McGuire, a primary opponent endorsed by former President Donald Trump and financially backed by Defending Main Street, the pro-incumbent PAC that claims responsibility for ousting former Republican Rep. Steve King.
Good has not been afraid to make enemies in his party, voting to oust former Speaker McCarthy and initially endorsing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ bid for president, though he flipped to Trump after DeSantis dropped out.
Good has also attempted to get back in Trump’s good graces, traveling up to New York to attend the former president’s hush-money trial — the same day McGuire also made the same trip.
“Bob Good is BAD FOR VIRGINIA, AND BAD FOR THE USA. He turned his back on our incredible movement, and was constantly attacking and fighting me until recently, when he gave a warm and ‘loving’ Endorsement – But really, it was too late,” Trump posted on Truth Social in May.
He added, “John McGuire has my Complete and Total Endorsement!” He posted the attack on Good again on Wednesday.
Good had also received a cease-and-desist from Trump’s campaign after using his name and image in campaign material.
“Trump’s endorsement represents a huge advantage for McGuire, and that’s why Good has tried to suggest that he is actually the favorite of the former president,” Stephen J. Farnsworth, professor of political science and international affairs at the University of Mary Washington, told ABC News by email. “While prominent Republicans have split in their preferences in this contest, none of them has anything like the influence with Republican primary voters that the former president has.”
The ire Good has drawn has landed him in a vulnerable position. McGuire has outraised Good and holds more cash on hand, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission (FEC) records by OpenSecrets. The state senator has also benefited from slightly more outside spending, OpenSecrets found.
Good still has the support of groups such as the conservative organization, Club for Growth and Trump-aligned members such as Republican Rep. Byron Donalds.
He has also portrayed himself as a known quantity to his constituents.
“They can trust me; they know that I’m a consistent conservative. They know that I’m the same thing publicly as I am privately, and I think they like that I’ve been fighting for them,” Good told Roanoke, Virginia, TV station WDBJ earlier in June.
McGuire, meanwhile, has slammed Good for portraying himself as a Trump-aligned conservative.
“We found out that Bob is not who he says he is … All over the district, people are saying, ‘thank you for giving us a choice.’ And the people of the district are the ones that asked me to do this. And they basically said, ‘John, you’re the only one who can beat them,'” McGuire told Lynchburg, Virginia, ABC affiliate WSET.
The fight between Good and McGuire has split Republicans both at the national and at the hyperlocal level.
For instance, there are signs of a fissure in the House Freedom Caucus itself. Republican Rep. Warren Davidson, a self-identified member of the House Freedom Caucus, endorsed McGuire on Sunday, writing in a statement shared by McGuire’s campaign, “I’ve served in Congress since 2016, and we need reinforcements to help Make America Great Again … [McGuire] will work well with others to deliver conservative results.”
And at the local level, some Republican leaders from the district have pushed back against Trump’s endorsement. The Charlottesville Daily Progress and other local outlets reported that 5th District Republican Congressional Committee Chair Rich Buchanan and other local Republican leaders wrote an open letter to Trump asking him to reconsider his endorsement of McGuire.
“Congressman Bob Good has championed America First policies … Congressman Good’s opponent is relying on millions of dollars from outside Virginia to support his candidacy,” they wrote.
ABC News has reached out to Buchanan for comment.
The district includes a wide swath of the southern part of the state, including the cities of Charlottesville and Lynchburg, and Cook Political Report rates the seat as likely to safely stay in Republican hands.
The Democratic primary in Virginia’s 7th district In 2018, Eugene Vindman helped his twin brother Alexander — both staffers for the National Security Council under Trump — blow the whistle on a phone call in which Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate Hunter Biden’s business dealings there. The Vindmans’ efforts launched the first of Trump’s two impeachment trials and catapulted Alexander and, to a lesser extent, Eugene into the national spotlight.
Now, propelled by name recognition, a campaign war chest much larger than his competitors’, and military bona fides — many members of the armed forces call the district home — Eugene Vindman appears poised to secure the Democratic party’s nomination in the tightly-contested swing district. Per FEC filings, Vindman has raised more than $5 million — and amount that’s more than all of his challengers combined.
“I sacrificed my military career to expose Trump’s corruption,” Vindman said in a campaign ad. “Now I’m running for Congress to get things done.”
As Vindman’s four leading opponents have been quick to point out, though, they each have something he does not: experience governing. Two — Andrea Bailey and Margaret Franklin — currently serve as Prince William County supervisors, and, until recently, two others — Elizabeth Guzman and Briana Sewell — served as members of Virginia’s House of Delegates. Guzman narrowly lost a primary after redistricting; Sewell remains in office.
That’s not all that differentiates Vindman and the field. Vindman, who is white, is running alongside three Black women and a Hispanic woman in a diversifying suburban district where roughly 35% of the population is not white, according to 2020 Census data.
“He does not understand the community. He’s not very infused in the community. He’s not been participating in the community as an advocate,” Bailey told the Associated Press.
“Vindman has three advantages going into this primary: he is very well-liked among Democratic activists and donors, he has a military background … and he is running as part of a large field where the people who do not support him will splinter in a variety of directions,” Farnsworth told ABC News.
If he secures the nomination, Vindman will likely draw a stark contrast with the Republican nominee.
The Republican primary for Virginia’s 7th district, which will also take place Tuesday, features nearly as many candidates and two frontrunners: Derrick Anderson, a former Army Green Beret who has received support from GOP leadership and finished second in the 2022 primary; and Cameron Hamilton, a former Navy SEAL with the backing of the House Freedom Caucus.
ABC News’ Isabella Murray contributed to this report.
(SEOUL, South Korea) — Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is expected to arrive in Pyongyang, North Korea, Tuesday evening, amid isolation from the international community resulting from Russia’s prolonged invasion into Ukraine.
He will meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for a summit talk during the two-day trip to discuss further cooperation since their meeting last September.
The Kremlin revealed Putin’s letter published in North Korea’s state newspaper Tuesday in which Putin referred to the relationship with North Korea as “friendship” and “neighborliness.”
“Today, as before, Russia and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea are actively advancing their multifaceted partnership,” Putin said in an article published in North Korea’s state newspaper Tuesday morning. “We highly appreciate the DPRK’s unwavering support for Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine.”
In the letter, Putin also hinted at closer cooperation, unrestrained by the Western world. He wrote of a plan to “develop alternative trade and mutual settlements mechanisms not controlled by the West,” calling for a joint movement to oppose the unilateral restrictions that Russia believes to be illegitimate.
Analysts in Seoul are also anticipating what may come out of the talks between the two notorious leaders who likely know that there is high interest from the international community in this summit.
“Putin’s visit is in part to thank North Korea for acting as an ‘arsenal for autocracy’ in support of his illegal invasion of Ukraine,” Leif-Eric Easley, professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, told ABC News. “Moscow’s transfer of sensitive military technologies to Pyongyang would not only violate UN sanctions but could also destabilize the Korean Peninsula and East Asia.”
“It seems Putin is paying the visit to keep his words, and also to show the world that Russia-North Korea solidarity is ironclad,” Sang-Jung Byun, Director of North Korean Studies at the Seoul-based Institute for National Security Strategy, told ABC News. “There is potential that Russia may bring up connecting railways again, which will become a huge source of foreign currency if possible.”
Another agenda item likely to be on the table is cooperation in space technology. North Korea is in desperate need of Russia’s help to upgrade its ambitious space program at the moment. The regime failed to launch its second reconnaissance satellite, and the satellite that is up and running in space is also questioned for its performance.
“A noticeable difference from Putin’s North Korea visit back in 2000 is that the heads of space corporation, railways and also energy are included in the entourage,” Seoul’s Unification Ministry official told journalists Tuesday. “We feel a need to keep a close eye on possible cooperation in space technology since the latest Russia-North Korea summit was held at the Vostochny Cosmodrome last year.”
The two leaders met nine months ago during Kim’s visit to the Vostochny Cosmodrome in far east Russia last September. For Putin, it is the first visit to Pyongyang in 24 years, when he as a new Russian leader met with the late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.
