For the first time in four years, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un left the country on a diplomatic trip, traveling by armored train for a summit with Vladimir Putin in the Russian Far East.

But rather than head straight for Vladivostok, the DPRK leader took a surprise route that bypassed the city entirely, instead meeting his Russian counterpart at a location clearly chosen for maximum symbolic impact — the Vostochny Cosmodrome at the center of Moscow’s space plans.

By meeting at the spaceport, the North Korean and Russian heads of state broadcast their efforts