This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, September 22nd, 2003.

I'm Caleb Brown.

How does the meeting between Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un

change the war in Ukraine.

Kate of Eric Gomez discusses what took place and the dynamics at work well beyond the

battlefield.

Eric, I am somewhat at a loss to understand even the basic social mechanics of two leaders,

some might say dictators, meeting with one another talking about weapons transfers for to help one side out

with an ongoing war can you give me a better picture of what any meeting like that might be like?

Well, it would probably, it would look a lot like the Kim Putin meeting that happened in Russia's Far East recently.

It's interesting when you have, like you said, those political systems

meeting, right? Because in both systems these are kind of the guy who can get things done.

And when the top guy goes and meets with another top guy,

people pay attention. And I think that what this shows for the Russian side is how isolated

they've become since starting the war in Ukraine because Putin hasn't really met with too many other top people at all

since last February. And for Kim, Kim also hasn't really met with many other top people at all in a while because of the COVID pandemic and his effort to kind of isolate the country and prevent COVID from spreading there.

It's odd to think that somebody like Vladimir Putin in Russia would have to go,

maybe not had in hand, but have to go to North Korea to seek a particular kind of wealth to

continue to operate his war. Can you give me a sense of what North Korea has in terms of conventional

weaponry that will assist Russia in their effort?

Yeah, they have a lot of mass.

So the North Koreans have a lot of artillery.

...