HANOI: Russian President Vladimir Putin did attend Hanoi this year, Vietnamese and Russian position media said on Monday, highlighting Socialist- ruled Vietnam’s devotion to Russia and triggering a U. S. rebuke.
The visit comes after Hanoi avoided a peace summit in Switzerland last weekend while taking its assistant foreign secretary to a BRICS gathering in Russia before this year.
Putin, who was sworn in for a second time only over a fortnight ago, is expected to meet Vietnam’s fresh leader, To Lam, and another leaders during the two- morning visit to Hanoi on Wednesday and Thursday, officials said.
The United States, which upgraded ties with Hanoi last year and is Vietnam’s leading buying partner, reacted cruelly.
When asked about the effects of the browse on relations with the United States, a representative for the U.S. ambassador in Hanoi said,” No country should provide Putin a platform to promote his war of aggression and then allow him to normalize his atrocities.”
The spokesperson added, referring to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, that if he is able to travel freely, it might normalize Russia’s flagrant violations of international law.
Vietnam’s foreign ministry did not reply to a request for comment.
The International Criminal Court ( ICC ) at the Hague issued an arrest warrant for the Russian president in March 2023 over alleged war crimes committed in Ukraine. Vietnam, Russia and the U. S. are not members of the ICC.
Prior to the visit, the European Union, a significant economic partner for Vietnam, did not comment on the delay in meeting with the EU envoy on Russian sanctions, which officials had attributed to preparations for Putin’s visit. However, the EU expressed disappointment last month over Hanoi’s decision to postpone a meeting.
After hosting Joe Biden and Xi Jinping in recent months, Hanoi’s visit is intended to “demystify that Vietnam pursues a balanced foreign policy that does not favor any of the major powers,” according to Ian Storey, senior fellow at the Singapore-based ISEAS- Yusof Ishak Institute.
Energy, arms, tech
In his first state visit to Vietnam since 2017 and his fifth in total, Putin is expected to announce agreements in sectors including trade, investment, technology and education, two officials told Reuters, although that was subject to change.
The officials, who declined to be identified because the issue was not public, said that discussions with Vietnamese leaders are likely to concentrate on more contentious issues.
One of the officials said that the talks would include talks about payments, which Russia has traditionally been the country’s top supplier, and energy, with Russian companies operating in Vietnamese gas and oil fields in South China Sea-contested areas, as well as arms, as the two nations have struggled to conduct transactions due to U.S. sanctions against Russian banks, according to one of the officials.
Whether announcements will be made regarding these subjects is unknown.
The Australian Defence Force Academy’s senior expert on Vietnam security, Carl Thayer, said,” The main issues are shoring up economic and commercial ties, including arms sales.”
Putin and Vietnam’s leaders are likely to agree to facilitate payment for goods and services by facilitating rouble-dong currency transactions through the banking system, he said.
