Russia-North Korea partnership sends warning to West

Russia and North Korea strengthened an alliance this week, in a blow to the U.S., with the leaders of both countries vowing to increase trade and defend each other in the event of an attack.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s treaty reached with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during a two-day state visit is the largest pact that Moscow has signed in years. It comes as the U.S. is trying to blunt the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine and deter Pyongyang from taking even more aggressive action against South Korea.

The U.S. has tried to isolate both countries, but Putin’s first visit to North Korea in 24 years was a counter to Washington’s influence, as he and Kim deepened an alliance that was forged last year after Pyongyang began supplying Russia with munitions in return for critical technology, food and cash.

Victor Cha, senior vice president for Asia and Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said Russia and North Korea have linked together two theaters of the world — Europe and Asia — posing a unique threat to the international order supported by the U.S. and Western allies.

“It’s bad from any way that you look at it,” he said, adding that the defense treaty is, in Putin’s mind, a renewal of Russian power. “I don’t think there’s a single bilateral relationship today that is more threatening than what we’re seeing between North Korea and Russia.”

The Putin-Kim summit this week came after about two decades of frozen ties. While the Soviet Union had helped form North Korea in 1948, the collapse of the communist bloc in the 1990s turned Russia toward capitalism and away from Pyongyang.

Putin visited Pyongyang in 2000, and there have been other meetings between Russian and North Korean leaders since, but a strong relationship was never formed. North Korea largely relies on China for trade to support its flailing economy.

But Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine increased global isolationism for Russia, which is also struggling with a wave of Western sanctions. The Kremlin has been forced to turn toward other nations to keep a protracted war running; Iran has provided Russia with explosive Shahed drones, and China has given Moscow machine tools and other nonlethal technology.

After Kim visited Russia in September, North Korea supplied Moscow with artillery shells, a strong area of production for Pyongyang, whose forces often shell near the border with South Korea. In turn, Russia has given North Korea access to technology that is helping Kim boost development of missiles and spy satellites, along with trade for a struggling economy.

Cha said the CSIS has documented busy activity in North Korea around facilities developing munitions, and that this could grow after the Putin-Kim summit, a dangerous sign for Ukraine as the U.S. and Western allies struggle to keep up with the artillery needed for the war.

“This will allow Putin, as we get into the fall, to continue to just pound the crap out of Ukraine with 10,000 rounds of artillery a day,” he said. “And it’s very hard for the United States and Ukraine to counter that, to match that. All they can try to do is hold the line.” 

The agreement reached Wednesday, which Russian media said overrides previous treaties, includes a commitment to increasing trade and the possibility of more defense and technology sharing in addition to a mutual defense pact, a rare move for Russia to make with another country.

Both Putin and Kim also publicly expressed shared frustrations, pushing for what they call a multipolar world order, meaning the end of U.S. dominance, and the lifting of sanctions and restrictions on nations.

Putin called it a “groundbreaking document” in remarks in Pyongyang. He also vowed to help defend North Korea against a “treacherous, dangerous and aggressive enemy.”

Kim said in public comments it was a “powerful treaty.”

“I have no doubt that it will be a driving force that would accelerate work to establish a new multipolar world,” Kim said, according to Russian state media.  

Putin was greeted with enthusiasm during his state visit, as Kim personally met him at Pyongyang International Airport with a decorated entourage and the Russian and North Korean flags on full display. 

North Korean state media said Kim took Putin in a private car and the two leaders “exchanged the inmost thoughts that had so far been confined to them” as they pledged to increase bilateral relations.

The visit prompted a backlash in the U.S., which has tried to dismantle Russia’s war machine. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday that Russia was “in desperation” trying to prop up its war in Ukraine. 

“We are very much concerned about this, because this is what’s keeping the war going,” he said. “And the fastest way to end the war is for Putin to be disabused of the notion that he can outlast Ukraine and outlast all of Ukraine’s supporters, but also, if he knows that the fuel he needs for his war machine won’t be there any more.”

Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder also said the “deepening cooperation” between Russia and North Korea was concerning for the Korean Peninsula, where Pyongyang and Seoul have both in the past several months abandoned a 2018 military agreement that had defused certain activity at the border.

North Korea has temporarily sent troops over the border and littered South Korea with trash balloons, while keeping up its missile tests and spy satellite launches, which are likely supported by Russian technology.

Russia’s technology trade with North Korea may also be helping to boost Kim’s nuclear ambitions to build a fleet of nuclear weapons, including submarines and intercontinental ballistic missiles that could threaten the trilateral alliance of South Korea, Japan and the U.S. in unprecedented ways.

It’s unclear how much technology Putin is sharing. Sue Mi Terry, senior fellow for Korea studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Putin may be less willing to provide North Korea with more sensitive technology under a temporary alliance, but that a prolonged war in Ukraine could change his calculus.

“If it is a more lasting alliance [then] Putin may be more forthcoming with Russian military technology,” she wrote in an analysis this week. “If that is the case, Russia could turbocharge the threat that North Korea poses.” 

The mutual defense treaty between North Korea and Russia also signals that in the event of a war breaking out on the Korean Peninsula, Moscow would come to Pyongyang’s aid, adding another complication to the regional tensions. 

Howard Stoffer, a professor of international affairs at the University of New Haven, said it was unclear if Russia would actually commit forces to any conflict on the Korean Peninsula. 

But Stoffer added that Moscow would likely send military aid to North Korea in the event of a conflict, though he doubted its effectiveness.

“I don’t think it’ll have very much impact, but it just makes Kim Jong Un feel he has his back covered,” Stoffer said. “This won’t change whatever we provide to South Korea [and] Russia is not going to provide any significant amount of military capability that the North doesn’t already have.”