Aides were filmed wiping down every surface touched by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un after his meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin in Beijing this week in the latest demonstration of the secretive state’s strict measures to guard against espionage.
A video shared on Telegram by Russian journalist Alexander Yunashev showed two staffers polishing the backrest and armrests of Mr Kim’s chair, cleaning a side table and carrying away his glass on a tray. “After the negotiations were over, the staff accompanying the head of the DPRK carefully destroyed all traces of Kim’s presence,” Mr Yunashev said, using the abbreviation for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
The clean-up followed a two-hour discussion between the two leaders after which they shared tea and exchanged warm farewells.
During the meeting, Mr Kim pledged solidarity with Russia, telling Mr Putin: “If there is anything I can or must do for you and the Russian people, I consider it my duty as a fraternal obligation.”
Mr Putin responded by addressing him as “Dear Chairman of State Affairs” and thanked North Korea for sending troops to aid in the war against Ukraine.
North Korea reportedly sent nearly 13,000 soldiers to help the Russian military successfully beat back a Ukrainian incursion into the Kursk border area early this year.
The Beijing summit took place on the sidelines of a major military parade marking Japan’s surrender in the Second World War.
Mr Putin and Mr Kim were among more than two dozen world leaders hosted at the parade by Chinese president Xi Jinping. It was Mr Kim’s first visit to the neighbouring country since the Covid pandemic.
The obsessive scrubbing of Mr Kim’s biological traces is not new. Analysts say the practice is designed to prevent foreign intelligence agencies from gathering samples that may reveal the condition of his health.
The Japanese newspaper Nikkei reported that Mr Kim travelled to Beijing on his signature green armoured train equipped with a private lavatory to ensure his waste could not be intercepted. Similar measures were in place under his father, the late Kim Jong Il.
“The special toilet and the requisite garbage bags of detritus, waste and cigarette butts are so that a foreign intelligence agency, even a friendly one, doesn’t acquire a sample and test it. It would provide insight into any medical conditions affecting Kim Jong Un. This can include hair and skin tags,” Michael Madden, a North Korea leadership specialist at the Washington-based Stimson Center, explained.
After his 2019 Hanoi summit with then US president Donald Trump, Mr Kim’s aides were seen blocking off the floor of his hotel room to clean it and remove items including the mattress.
In 2018, North Korean security sprayed disinfectant on a chair and desk before Mr Kim sat down with South Korean’s then president Moon Jae In.
At a previous meeting with Mr Putin in 2023, Mr Kim’s guards disinfected and scanned his chair with a metal detector before he used it.
Mr Kim is not alone in taking such precautions.
Reports have long suggested that Mr Putin’s security aides collect his bodily waste during overseas trips and transports it back to Moscow in sealed containers, a measure believed to have been in place since at least 2017 to prevent DNA theft.
Moscow and Pyongyang have been deepening their partnership since the two countries signed a mutual defence pact in 2024, positioning themselves together against Western sanctions.
