Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte (R) flies to Russia Monday to meet his hero Vladimir Putin, seen together on the sidelines of an APEC summit in Lima in 2016, seek arms and steer his nation's foreign policy course further away from longtime ally the United States (AFP Photo/Mikhail KLIMENTYEV)

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte flew to Russia on Monday to meet his hero, seek arms and steer his nation's foreign policy further away from longtime ally the United States. The Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte, is due to arrive in Moscow for a five-day trip in which he will meet his “favourite hero” Vladimir Putin and attempt to reorient his country’s geopolitical alliance further away from the US and towards Moscow. Duterte has lambasted the US since he came to power last year, calling Barack Obama a “son of a bitch”, and has said Russia and China are the only two major world powers he trusts. “I remember what the Russian diplomat said: ‘Come to Russia, we all have here anything you need,’” he said at the time. Duterte and Putin first met on the sidelines of an international summit last November, when the Russian president extended an invitation to Duterte to visit Moscow.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who later had to cut short his visit to Moscow because of terrorist attacks on the Philippine southern island of Mindanao, tells Russia President Vladimir Putin that the Philippines is looking to Russia for modern arms to fight ISIL.