Putin and Kim are the odd couple with a dual mission – cementing a new world order | Simon Tisdall

Kim enjoys the recognition and backs Putin in Ukraine. Putin's war, meanwhile needs North Korean weapons. It's a dangerous alliance

They make an odd couple. One is smiley-faced and chubby. The other is thin-lipped and scowls a lot. Both are dictators, sinister, brutal and unaccountable in their different ways. Both have made it their mission in life to overturn the post-1945 global order, defying the US, its chief patrolman. And both are sanctioned, ostracised and a little bit feared by the countries of the west.

Those fears are likely to intensify after today's Pyongyang summit, both symbolic and substantive, between this unofficial Laurel and Hardy tribute act. North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un - the plump one - and Russia's Vladimir Putin - the skinny one - have a shared aim: consolidating their place in a bullish anti-western, anti-democratic alliance, ostensibly representing a new world order", reaching from China to Iran.

Simon Tisdall is the Observer's Foreign Affairs Commentator

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