Kim Jong Un Leaves No Trace After Beijing Meeting With Putin

When Kim Jong Un met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing, the talks ended with smiles, handshakes—and a security ritual straight out of a spy thriller. Moments after the two leaders left the meeting room, Kim’s staff moved in. Cameras caught them furiously scrubbing his chair, polishing the armrests, wiping the backrest, and even cleaning the coffee table beside him. His drinking glass? Gone instantly.

To outside eyes, it looked obsessive. To Pyongyang, it’s survival. According to Kremlin reporter Alexander Yunashev, who shared the footage, Kim’s aides were “carefully destroying all traces” of the North Korean leader’s presence. Every smudge, every fingerprint, every hint of DNA—erased. And that’s just the visible part. Kim travels with his own toilet, transported aboard his armoured green train, so no one can analyse his waste for health clues. Intelligence agencies, analysts say, would jump at the chance to know if the 40-year-old leader has medical vulnerabilities. “Even cigarette butts or a strand of hair could reveal secrets,” notes Michael Madden, a North Korea watcher at the Stimson Centre.

The practice isn’t new. In 2019, after Kim’s summit with Donald Trump in Hanoi, his bodyguards spent hours disinfecting his hotel suite and reportedly carted out a mattress. In 2018, his guards sprayed and wiped down chairs before he sat with South Korea’s Moon Jae-in. And before a 2023 meeting with Putin, his team disinfected Kim’s chair and swept it with a metal detector. To the outside world, it’s paranoia. To Kim Jong Un’s regime, it’s protocol. Every trip abroad is a battle to keep the world guessing—about his health, his habits, and even his DNA. Kim may shake hands with foreign leaders. But he never, ever leaves a trace.