Kim Jong-un heads to Beijing on armored train to join Xi, Putin
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has departed aboard an armored train to make his multilateral diplomatic debut in Beijing, where he will join Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and other leaders.
North Korea’s state media early Tuesday confirmed that Kim had set off by private train on Monday to attend China’s ‘Victory Day’ celebrations.
The state-run Korean Central News Agency reported the news, citing a notice from Kim Chon-il, director of the department of press and information at North Korea’s Foreign Ministry.
According to the notice, the North Korean leader is accompanied by senior party and government officials, including Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui. However, state media did not provide further details, including the exact location of his departure.
Sources in Seoul on Monday confirmed that Kim had left Pyongyang for Beijing by private train Monday afternoon.
Kim's olive-green, heavily armored flagship train, marked by a yellow stripe, is expected to arrive in Beijing on Tuesday after crossing the Sino–North Korea Friendship Bridge — linking Sinuiju in North Korea with Dandong in China across the Yalu River.
Kim’s trip to Beijing has drawn attention for bringing him together with 26 leaders — including those from heavily sanctioned states such as Russia, Iran and Myanmar — with the conspicuous absence of Western leaders.
Significantly, Kim will be present at the Tiananmen rostrum alongside Xi and Putin on Wednesday to watch a massive military parade commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II — a tableau carrying significant geostrategic ramifications.
The South Korean government had anticipated that Kim would travel to Beijing aboard his private train mainly for security reasons.
Kim opted to spend roughly 20 hours on the train — officially named Taeyang-ho, invoking the Korean word for "sun" in a symbolic reference to North Korea’s late founder Kim Il-sung — from Pyongyang to Beijing rather than take a one-hour flight.
Kim's private train has been widely believed by South Korean intelligence to be equipped with bulletproof windows, reinforced sides, a special mesh cover designed to evade radar detection and onboard mortars.
Weighed down by armor and equipment, the Taeyang-ho travels at about 50 kilometers per hour.
Since taking power in 2011, Kim has traveled abroad eight times from March 2018 to September 2023, excluding his current trip to Beijing.
Kim rode the Taeyang-ho for five of those trips, including visits to Beijing in March 2018 and January 2019, as well as the 2019 Hanoi, Vietnam, summit with US President Donald Trump. The trip was a lengthy 60-hour journey across China that attracted global attention for its duration and symbolism.
The armored convoy also took him to Russia for his first summit with Putin in Vladivostok in April 2019. Kim used his private train again to visit Russia’s far eastern Amur region in September 2023 to meet Putin. On that trip, Kim’s train left Pyongyang on September 10 and traveled over 2,700 kilometers in three nights and four days to reach the Vostochny Cosmodrome in eastern Russia.
On three of eight overseas trips, Kim used planes.
Twice in May and June 2018, when visiting Dalian and Beijing, Kim boarded Chammae-1, a retrofitted IL-62M jet named after then-North Korea’s national bird. The Soviet-built aircraft, designed in the 1970s and retired in 1995, has faced safety concerns for years.
For the 2018 Singapore summit with US President Donald Trump, Kim borrowed a Chinese plane for the event.
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