South Korea’s state intelligence agency says it expects North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to stand alongside Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin at Wednesday’s military parade in Beijing, reenacting a Cold War-era alignment. 

At a closed-door meeting of the National Assembly’s Intelligence Committee, the National Intelligence Service said there is also a possibility that Kim could sit down for separate talks with Xi and Putin.

According to lawmakers who attended the session, the spy agency said Kim may be visiting China to expand his diplomatic room to maneuver by restoring relations with Beijing and to seek economic support.

The agency also said it doesn’t expect a meaningful encounter between Kim and National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-shik, who is also attending the parade. 

It said North Korea plans to send an additional six-thousand soldiers to Russia in its third deployment to aid the war with Ukraine and that it estimates around two-thousand North Korean troops have been killed in the first and second deployments. 

The lawmakers said Kim crossed the border into China early Tuesday and will likely arrive in Beijing in the late afternoon to attend a military parade at Tiananmen Square on Wednesday to mark the 80th anniversary of China’s victory over Japan at the end of World War II.

The regime leader is believed to be accompanied by Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui and Kim Song-nam, director of the international affairs department within the ruling Workers’ Party.

Kim’s wife, daughter and sister may also be accompanying him.