How Putin Uses His Pet Dogs for the Kremlin’s Dirty Tricks
Russian President Vladimir Putin has a lot to show for his whirlwind trip to Pyongyang this week, including a new mutual defense pact, a gallery of photos with Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un, and a pair of dogs personally gifted to him by the North Korean dictator.
Just as Chinese officials have given giant pandas to other countries in “panda diplomacy,” “dog diplomacy” is alive and well in the Koreas—and Kim Jong Un’s gift of two Pungsan dogs—a local breed—might be his way of indicating that North Korea and Russia are closer than ever before.
“It seems to be designed to protect this image of two ‘nice guys’ who love animals and are happy to see each other and build the relationship between their two countries and everything is going very well,” Jan Kubik, chair of the Department of Political Science at Rutgers and author of The Power of Symbols against the Symbols of Power, told The Daily Beast.