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North Korea's Kim Jong-un and Russia's Vladimir Putin have pledged to boost ties at their first ever summit.

The pair shook hands on Russky Island near the port city of Vladivostok, in Russia's far east.

The Kremlin said the leaders would discuss denuclearisation, but Mr Kim is also expected to be seeking support after talks with the US collapsed.

The talks in Hanoi with US President Donald Trump failed to reach a deal on North Korea's nuclear programme.

At their opening remarks the Russian and North Korean leaders referred to their two countries' long history of ties and Mr Putin said he wanted to help calm Korean tensions.

"I am confident your visit today to Russia will help us to better understand how we can resolve the situation on the Korean peninsula and what Russia can do to support the positive processes currently taking place," Mr Putin said.

Mr Kim said he hoped for "a very useful meeting in developing the relationship between the two countries, who have a long friendship and history, into a more stable and sound one".

The North Korean leader greeted Russian officials warmly when he arrived on Wednesday.

Mr Kim was entertained by a brass band before he got inside a car flanked by bodyguards, who - in now familiar scenes - jogged alongside the vehicle as it departed.

According to the Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin believes the six-party talks on North Korea, which are currently stalled, are the only efficient way of addressing the issue of nuclear weapons on the peninsula.

Those talks, which began in 2003, involve the two Koreas as well as China, Japan, Russia and the US.

"There are no other efficient international mechanisms at the moment," Mr Peskov told reporters on Wednesday.

"But, on the other hand, efforts are being made by other countries. Here all efforts merit support as long as they really aim at de-nuclearisation and resolving the problem of the two Koreas."

This visit is being widely viewed as an opportunity for North Korea to show it has powerful allies following the breakdown of nuclear talks with the US in February.

The country has blamed US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for the collapse of the Hanoi summit.

Earlier this month North Korea demanded that Mr Pompeo be removed from nuclear talks, accusing him of "talking nonsense" and asking for someone "more careful" to replace him.

The summit is also an opportunity for Pyongyang to show that its economic future does not depend solely on the US, our correspondent adds.

Mr Kim may also try to put pressure on Moscow to ease sanctions.

Analysts believe this summit is a chance for Russia to show that it is an important player on the Korean peninsula.

President Putin has been eager to meet the North Korean leader for quite some time. Yet amid the two Trump-Kim summits, the Kremlin has been somewhat sidelined.

Russia, like the US and China, is uncomfortable with North Korea being a nuclear state.

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union (of which Russia is the main successor state) maintained close military and trade links with its communist ally, North Korea, for ideological and strategic reasons.

After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, trade links with post-communist Russia shrank and North Korea leaned towards China as its main ally.

Under President Putin, Russia recovered economically and in 2014 he wrote off most of North Korea's Soviet-era debt in a major goodwill gesture.

While it is arguable how much leverage Russia has with the North today, the communist state still regards it as one of the least hostile foreign powers.

On Tuesday, President Trump hosted Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in the Oval Office for a closed-door meeting, during which the leader of the free world spent an inordinate amount of time complaining about lost Twitter followers, according to a source familiar with the conversation.

The Twitter chief, for his part, tried to reassure the president that the company’s staff merely wants his follower count to be as bot-free as possible.

This is what the most powerful person in the world was preoccupied with Tuesday.

A large percentage of the meeting, which included senior White House officials such as Trump’s social media director Dan Scavino, was spent addressing the subject of @realDonaldTrump’s follower count. The president stated his belief that he had lost some of his roughly 59 million followers in anti-Trump, anti-conservative Twitter purges, according to a source familiar with the meeting.

Dorsey, according to this knowledgeable source, had to explain to the president that like other Twitter users, @realDonaldTrump periodically loses followers when the site deletes fake or bot accounts. Dorsey even said he himself had lost followers as a result of Twitter’s efforts to delete fake accounts.

During this private gathering in the West Wing, Dorsey assured Trump that the company wants him, and everyone else on Twitter, to have only real followers, according to the source.

Trump also said he’s heard from other prominent conservatives about problems with Twitter, though he declined to name names.

The summit with Twitter’s CEO is unlikely to assuage the president’s concerns about tech giants and social media, of which he has many. Two people close to Trump previously told The Daily Beast that Trump has repeatedly griped to associates about how his predecessor, President Obama, has had more Twitter followers than he has, even though—by Trump’s own assessment—he is so much better at Twitter than Obama is.

The Washington Post first reported that the president devoted much of the White House meeting to grumbling about his Twitter followers. Earlier in the day, Motherboard broke the news that Trump and Dorsey were meeting on Tuesday.

Dorsey also used the meeting to promote Twitter’s efforts to fight opioid addiction, which include using a special emoji to promote National Prescription Drug Take Back Day. It is unclear how interested Trump was in discussing those efforts, at least compared to his time spent inquiring about the alleged purging of his followers.

Beyond confirming that the meeting had indeed occurred, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders did not respond to The Daily Beast’s follow-up questions as of press time.

The discussion came a few hours after early morning tweets from the president accusing Twitter of playing “political games” with his follower count and calling for congressional intervention against the company.

“Constantly taking people off list,” Trump tweeted. “Big complaints from many people.”

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has accused the US of acting in "bad faith" during the summit earlier this year with President Donald Trump, according to the Korean Central News Agency.

He also said peace in the Korean peninsula would depend entirely on Washington.

Mr Kim made his remarks at Thursday's summit with Russia's President Vladimir Putin in Vladivostok.

President Putin accepted an invitation to visit North Korea, KCNA reported.

The visit would take place "at a convenient time," the news agency added.

Kim Jong-un reportedly told Vladimir Putin that "the situation on the Korean peninsula and the region is now at a standstill and has reached a critical point".

He warned the situation "may return to its original state as the US took an unilateral attitude in bad faith" during recent talks.

It comes a week after Pyongyang accused the US of derailing peace talks.

Negotiations between the two countries broke down during a summit in Vietnam in February, with no deal reached about North Korea's nuclear weapons.

Those talks reportedly stalled over North Korea's demand for full economic sanctions relief in return for some denuclearisation commitments - a deal the US was not willing to make.

During Thursday's summit in Vladivostok, President Putin attempted to act as arbiter, saying Mr Kim needed international security guarantees if he was to end his nuclear programme.

The Trump Campaign Conspired With the Russians. Mueller Proved It.

Trump has repeatedly griped to associates about how his predecessor, President Obama, has had more Twitter followers than he has, even though—by Trump’s own assessment—he is so much better at Twitter than Obama is

If the central concern was that of Russian interference in our election, then this dossier was, quite obviously, itself a front rank potential source of it.

Quote:

Trump has repeatedly griped to associates about how his predecessor, President Obama, has had more Twitter followers than he has, even though—by Trump’s own assessment—he is so much better at Twitter than Obama is

A giant of a man, Mr Trump. Surely the best and most honorable President America has ever seen.

A Russian agent who tried to infiltrate US political groups has been sentenced to 18 months in prison, telling the court: "I destroyed my own life."

Maria Butina tried to insinuate herself into the National Rifle Association (NRA) in an effort to sway American policies in favour of Moscow.

After pleading not guilty, she later reversed her position, admitting to a single count of conspiracy in December.

The 30-year-old has been in custody since July.

She will face deportation immediately after her sentence is served.

Butina told the court: "My parents discovered my arrest on the morning news they watch in their rural house in a Siberian village.

"I love them dearly, but I harmed them morally and financially. They are suffering from all of that.

"I destroyed my own life as well. I came to the United States not under any orders, but with hope, and now nothing remains but penitence."

Despite prosecutor's claims that she damaged US national security, Butina said that she had no intention of harming the American people.

Her sentencing came on the same day that US President Donald Trump travelled to speak at the NRA convention in Indianapolis.

In court on Friday, US District Judge Tanya Chutkan said she had received and reviewed two dozen character letters for Butina.

But the judge was reportedly unmoved by Butina's apology, saying that her actions "jeopardised our country's national security", US media said.

"This was no simple misunderstanding by a overeager foreign student," Judge Chutkan said.

At the end of the hearing, Judge Chutkan wished Butina well.

"You are a young woman, you are smart, you are hard working." Judge Chutkan said to Butina, "I wish you the best luck."

Federal prosecutor Erik Kenserson described Butina as an agent of a foreign government with "undoubtedly serious" intentions, though stopped short of calling her activities espionage.

"While it is certainly true that the defendant was an American university student," Mr Kenerson said, "She did this for the benefit of the Russian Federation."

As part of a plea deal, Butina had agreed to co-operate with investigators. Judge Chutkan noted on Friday that Butina had provided "substantial assistance" to law enforcement.

Prosecutors said they expected the deal would provide information about Russia's efforts to interfere in US politics.

Prosecutors said Butina was directed by a senior Russian official to infiltrate conservative political groups, including an unnamed pro-gun lobbying organisation presumed to be the NRA, which is allied with Mr Trump's Republican party.

The case has no connection with the Mueller inquiry into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

In a statement read in court, one of the prosecutors said Butina had drafted, in March 2015, a document called "Diplomacy Project" that called for unofficial communication lines between high-ranking US officials and Russia.

She acknowledged that she worked with two Americans and a Russian official.

The Russian government has previously described the case as "fabricated".