Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un (AFP).

After Kim Jong Un met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing, a team of North Korean staff carefully wiped down everything the country’s leader had touched.

Analysts say this was part of a set of security measures to prevent espionage.

Even as Kim and Putin showed signs of friendship, footage on Wednesday captured the exceptional measures taken by the isolated state to hide any evidence about Kim’s health.

Kremlin correspondent Alexander Yunashev posted a video on the Telegram app showing two staff members accompanying Kim meticulously cleaning the room in the Chinese capital where Kim and Putin met for over two hours.

The two wiped the back of the chair and armrests and cleaned the coffee table next to Kim’s seat. They also removed the cup from which the North Korean leader drank.

The correspondent said, “After the discussions ended, the two staff members accompanying the Chairman of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea carefully removed all traces of Kim’s presence.”

After the talks in the hall, Kim and Putin left to have tea and warmly bid each other farewell.

As in previous foreign trips, Kim took his private toilet on board a distinctive green-colored train to Beijing to hide health evidence, according to Nikkei newspaper citing South Korean and Japanese intelligence agencies.

Michael Madden, a North Korea expert at the US-based Stimson Center, said such measures have been standard protocol since the era of Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Un’s father.

He added, “The private toilet, collecting waste, trash, and cigarette butts in garbage bags so that a foreign intelligence agency, even if friendly, does not get a sample to test.”

In 2019, after the Kim-Trump summit in Hanoi, Kim’s guards were seen locking the floor where his hotel room was for hours to clean it and removing items including the mattress pad.