BEIJING (BN24) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s staff were seen meticulously wiping down and removing every item he touched after his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing, a practice analysts say underscores Pyongyang’s extreme security measures to prevent foreign intelligence agencies from gathering clues about Kim’s health.
Footage shared on Telegram by Kremlin reporter Alexander Yunashev showed two North Korean aides carefully scrubbing the backrest and armrests of Kim’s chair, along with a coffee table beside him, immediately after the two leaders concluded more than two hours of talks. Kim’s drinking glass was also discreetly taken away.
“After the negotiations were over, the staff accompanying the head of the DPRK carefully destroyed all traces of Kim’s presence,” Yunashev wrote.
Despite the display of camaraderie between Kim and Putin, the images highlighted Pyongyang’s long-standing policy of shielding its leader from even the smallest possibility of foreign intelligence collection. Kim has consistently traveled abroad with his own toilet facilities — transported aboard his signature green armored train — to avoid leaving behind biological samples, according to South Korean and Japanese intelligence cited by Japan’s Nikkei newspaper.
Michael Madden, a North Korea leadership expert at the U.S.-based Stimson Center, said such precautions have been routine since the rule of Kim’s father, 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, does not acquire a sample and test it,” Madden explained. “It would provide insight into any medical conditions affecting Kim Jong Un. This can include hair and skin tags.”
Kim’s protective measures have been documented before. After his 2019 Hanoi summit with U.S. President Donald Trump, Kim’s guards were seen sealing off the floor of his hotel and thoroughly cleaning the room for hours, even removing the mattress from his bed. In 2018, when he met South Korean President Moon Jae-in, his security detail sprayed down chairs and a desk with sanitizer before Kim sat.
More recently, before a 2023 summit with Putin, Kim’s guards wiped down his chair with disinfectant and checked it with a metal detector to ensure no surveillance or harmful device had been placed.
After their private meeting in Beijing, Kim and Putin were seen sharing tea before bidding each other a warm farewell, a rare moment of public camaraderie between two leaders whose cooperation has deepened amid rising tensions with the West.
