SEOUL — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will visit an aviation factory and inspect Russia’s Pacific naval fleet on Friday and Saturday, continuing his focus on military issues on his third day in the Russian Far East.

After a day of warm words and toasts on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin had accepted Kim’s invitation to make a reciprocal visit to North Korea “in the future,” the North’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Thursday.

In the meantime, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would visit Pyongyang for more talks next month, the Kremlin said.

The pair of international outcasts has been putting on a show of support and camaraderie this week in a clear rebuff to U.S.-led efforts to isolate Putin over his invasion of Ukraine and Kim over his pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

Putin on Wednesday welcomed Kim to the Vostochny Cosmodrome spaceport, where they held almost five hours of talks and had dinner. They are likely to have discussed arms sales from North Korea to Russia and food aid for North Korea.

Kim is now traveling to the city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur to visit military and civilian aviation factories, the Kremlin said. Japan’s Kyodo News agency, citing unnamed sources, said the factory that Kim was expected to visit is one that manufactures Sukhoi fighter jets.

The North Korean leader will then travel to Vladivostok to inspect the Pacific Fleet.

Kim’s visits to space, aviation and military facilities in Russia point to potential areas of cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow following the leaders’ meeting.

The Kremlin said cooperation between Russia and North Korea on “sensitive” subjects should not be made public.

Kim and Putin pledged to work together “to frustrate the imperialists’ military threat and provocation,” among other shared political, economic and military goals, the KCNA said.

Kim vowed to work out a “a far-reaching plan for the DPRK-Russia relations in the new era,” the state news agency said, using the acronym for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

He invited Putin to visit North Korea “at a convenient time,” it said. “Putin accepted the invitation with pleasure and reaffirmed his will to invariably carry forward the history and tradition of the Russia-DPRK friendship.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that no visit by Putin to North Korean has been planned.

Wednesday’s meeting between Kim and Putin follows months of U.S. intelligence assessments that Russia is looking to obtain weaponry from North Korea to replenish its dwindling supplies for the war in Ukraine, while Pyongyang is seeking to boost its beleaguered economy and get Moscow to share advanced technology for its satellite and nuclear programs.

North Korea is believed to have a large stockpile of dated artillery shells and rockets that would be compatible with Soviet and Russian weapons systems used in Ukraine, as well as a production capacity that would help Russia maintain its high ammunition burn rate as the Kremlin seeks to scale up domestic production.

Russia used up to 11 million shells in Ukraine last year, according to recent Western estimates, and is set to fire 7 million more this year, said Jack Watling, senior research fellow for land warfare at the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank.

A potential arms deal would violate U.N. sanctions that Russia previously supported as a member state and a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council.

Neither Pyongyang nor Moscow mentioned any discussions about arms supply at the summit, although Washington continues to accuse the two leaders of pursuing a such deal.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Wednesday that it was “troubling” to see Kim pledging full support for Russia and its security interests. “We have reason to believe they were going to discuss military transfers that is quite troubling and would potentially be in violation of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions.”

He said the Biden administration “will not hesitate” to impose additional sanctions over a weapons transfer between North Korea and Russia.

previous coverage

• Kim pledges to back Putin’s ‘sacred struggle’ during rare summit
• North Korea fires ballistic missiles amid Putin-Kim summit, Seoul says