The film’s plot riled Pyongyang — and, leaked e-mails revealed, Sony executives — and instigated one of the strangest geopolitical spats of the year, with many in the United States reacting angrily to Sony’s acquiescence in the face of North Korean “terror.”
Meanwhile, Putin has also been in the spotlight. On Thursday, he held a defiant three-hour-long year-end news conference, where he inveighed upon the “external” forces that had conspired to undermine Russia’s economy. Sanctions imposed by the West, a slide in oil prices and a free-falling ruble have all made the end of 2014 a gloomy time for the Russian president.
But his invitation to Kim is not just meant as a rebuke of the U.S. and its allies. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union helped prop up the totalitarian regime in Pyongyang. Now, Russia needs North Korean cooperation in its bid to build a pipeline that would boost gas exports to South Korea, Reuters reports. As is often the case in Moscow, energy policy usually outweighs other imperatives.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member