North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reportedly traveled to Russia on Tuesday in a bullet-proof train that the reclusive communist nation’s leaders have used for decades.
Kim has used the train on many occasions in the past, including a previous trip to Putin’s Russia in 2019 and on state visits to China and Vietnam, Reuters reported. Bullet-proof trains offer a secure ride for Kim and his security apparatus as well as meeting spaces where the leader can discuss plans for future meetings, according to Reuters. (RELATED: Kim Jong Un To Visit Putin Amid Concerns Over Potential Weapons Deal)
Given the communist country’s rickety infrastructure, however, the luxurious train has a maximum speed of only about 25 mph, Reuters reported.
“Even if it is slow, [a] train is safer and more comfortable than anything else for a North Korean leader,” Ahn Byung-min, a South Korean expert on North Korean transportation, told Reuters.
Joe Biden gestures during a campaign stop at Alliance Amtrak Station in Ohio. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Kim’s grandfather and North Korea’s founder, Kim Il Sung, was known to travel by train until his death in 1994, and his son, Kim Jong Il, exclusively used trains to travel to Russia, including a 12,000-mile journey in 2001, according to Reuters.
President Joe Biden has claimed to extensively train travel on America’s carrier, Amtrak. His oft-repeated claim that as vice president he traveled more miles on Amtrak from Washington, D.C., to his home in Delaware than on Air Force 2 has been debunked multiple times, The Independent reported.
“When I was vice president, I flew over a million miles on Air Force Two. And I was going home … as vice president, and one of the conductors said to me, ‘Hey, Joe, big deal, a million whatever, 200 —’ he said, ‘You said have over a million miles on Amtrak.’ I said, ‘How the hell do you know that?’ And they added it up,” Biden said in January.