Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Vietnam to a rather muted welcome, a contrast to his lavish visit to North Korea earlier this week. At the airport, he was greeted by lower-ranking Vietnamese ministers. But things picked up quickly enough — Putin met with Nguyen Phu Trong, Vietnam's communist party chief, the new state president, To Lam, and signed more than a dozen accords on bilateral cooperation, including education, medicine, fossil fuels and a nuclear science and technology center in Vietnam.

None of the documents that have been made public are linked to defense, but Vietnamese President Lam said there were other deals that will remain secret.

The visit has already prompted condemnation from Washington, with the US saying Vietnam welcoming Putin was normalizing Moscow's "blatant violations of international law," referring to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

As part of its neutral foreign policy, Hanoi is eager to make clear that it isn't an ally of the United States, nor a vassal state of China. It has consistently abstained from all UN resolutions condemning Russia's war in Ukraine, claiming neutrality over the conflict, and was one of four Southeast Asian states that refused to attend last weekend's Summit on Peace in Ukraine in the Swiss town of Bürgenstock. Russia was not invited to the summit.

"We are grateful to our Vietnamese friends for their........

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