Singapore summit is shifting Asian strategic landscape

MOON Jae-in visits Russia from Thursday to Saturday in the first state visit by a sitting South Korean president since 1999. The landmark trip will see Mr Moon watch the South Korea-Mexico World Cup match on Saturday, but the real driver is Thursday's meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin to discuss "denuclearisation" of the Korean peninsula after the Singapore summit.

This first visit by any South Korean head of state to Russia for around two decades, in which Mr Moon will also become the nation's first-ever president to deliver a speech to the Russian State Duma, underlines the shifting geopolitical tectonic plates around North and South Korea since the rapprochement between the two nations this year. On Monday the latest manifestation of this diplomatic warming came with the decision to form some combined sports teams to compete at August's Asian games.

Following American president Donald Trump's Singapore session with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, other major powers with a stake in the question of the future of the Korean peninsula, including Mr Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, are all jockeying for position as the region's military and strategic landscapes are potentially recast around the world's last Cold War-era frontier.