Understanding the Russia-North Korea Strategic Partnership and the U.S.-Dominated War in Ukraine: South Korea, Japan, and Korea

Their upcoming meeting is a sign that the two countries’ close military partnership was built over Russia’s war in Ukraine.

In the past year, the two increasingly isolated countries have engaged in a flurry of bilateral diplomatic and cultural exchanges, including visits by North Korea’s foreign minister and Russia’s defense minister. Kim Jong Un appeared frequently at weapons factories and test sites.

North Korea previously had an alliance treaty with the Soviet Union that stipulated automatic involvement in case of an attack on either of the countries. After the fall of the Soviet Union, it was succeeded in 2000 by a lower-level treaty with Russia.

South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik said in an interview that North Korea could have shipped as many as 5 million shells to Russia.

Russia is paying for military supplies with fuel and food, which is not known for being altruistic. Kim is interested in the technologies of Russia. Putin may allow himself to be embraced by Kim, as Putin now calls him.

He pledged the two countries will “develop alternative trade and mutual settlement mechanisms not controlled by the West” and “build an equal and indivisible security architecture in Eurasia” while increasing people-to-people exchanges.

President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed the comprehensive strategic partnership treaty after their summit in Pyongyang on Wednesday.

Still, Russia and North Korea may see each other’s value as a strategic partner in their opposition to the U.S.-led world order, especially given China’s elusiveness, says Town.

Jenny Town is the director of the Korea Program at the Stimson Center, a foreign affairs think tank in Washington, D.C., she says that even if the two countries agree to a higher level of military cooperation, they will be reluctant to formally announce it.

Not only are many of North Korea’s military activities under sanctions, but also the country stresses self-reliance and shuns appearing dependent on other countries.

“Russia is willing to be bold, is trying to upend the system,” she says, “whereas China is still trying to be part of that system and trying to have some governance role in that system.”

China held high-level talks with South Korea on Tuesday, just hours before Putin’s expected arrival in Pyongyang. And the leaders of China, Japan and South Korea held a trilateral summit last month for the first time in over four years.

“China still talks about denuclearization whereas the Russians seem to have generally accepted North Korea as a country that’s nuclear armed,” adds Town.

Town thinks that it will be harder to get North Korea back to denuclearization negotiations with the US and its allies.

Cold War Bid for Global Power: To Run the World: The Kremlin’s Case Study of the War of Liberation between the United States and the Soviet Union

Sergey Radchenko is the Wilson E. Schmidt distinguished professor at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He is based at SAIS-Europe, in Bologna, Italy. His new book, To Run the World: The Kremlin’s Cold War Bid for Global Power, was published by Cambridge University Press in May.

The Soviet relationship with North Korea never quite returned to what it was under Stalin. Pyongyang leaned to China’s side in the Sino-Soviet split in the early 1960s, and although Kim later quarreled with the Chinese (few know that the two dictatorships fought a brief border skirmish in 1969), he never drifted to the Soviet camp, preferring a posture of fierce independence.

It did not go well. Putin now calls the invasion of the South by North Korean a “patriotic war of liberation”, which he says triggered the U.S. and China’s intervention. It was the Chinese that were able to push the United Nations troops back to the 38th parallel. The fighting ended with a cease-fire in 1953, although the two nations are technically still at war.

Mao was referring to a purge of the Workers’ Party of Korea that Kim unleashed in 1956, when he targeted his opponents whom he suspected of pro-Chinese and pro-Russian leanings. Kim embraced juche, a form of self-reliance, after he got away with his purge. It was never actual self-reliance, of course, certainly not in economic terms. The North Koreans continued to depend on their two sponsors — China and the USSR — for economic and military aid.

The Soviets eyed their sometimes-ally with frustration and annoyance, worried as they were that Kim’s militant outbursts (such as the North Korean capture of USS Pueblo in 1968 and the shootdown of the American reconnaissance plane EC-121 in 1969) would implicate the Soviet Union. The hard-liners in the relationship had no tears when the relationship started to break in the 1980s. South Korea was looked to by the rest of Russia.

Russia invaded the Ukrainian peninsula in February 2022, and that changed the game it played in Korea. South Korea joined U.S.-led sanctions against Russia, causing a plunge in bilateral trade. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol visited Kyiv in July 2023 in a show of support for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

A lot has changed since Foreign Minister Kim Yong Nam accused Shevardnadze of discarding North Korea like a pair of “worn-out shoes,” more than three decades ago. Putin put the old shoes back on after taking them out of the garbage bin. He likes the look of it.

Putin called the new treaty, which would replace the previous ones, “a truly groundbreaking document that reflects the desire of the two countries not to rest on their laurels, but to bring our relations to a new qualitative level.” He added it “sets large-scale tasks and benchmarks for deepening Russian-Korean relations in the long term.”

In a press conference after the meeting, Putin said the agreement includes the provision of mutual assistance if there is an aggression against one of the signers.

The full scope of the treaty and other agreements is not made public. And some North Korea watchers question the sustainability of the current bilateral ties.

The united States and its allies are concerned that a military partnership between the two ostracized countries would embolden them and wreak havoc in the region and beyond.

In Washington on Tuesday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said after his meeting with Secretary of State Anthony Blinken that Russia’s war is “propped up” by countries like North Korea and China. If they succeed in Ukranian, it will cause the world to be much more dangerous.

Kim Jong Un meets Putin in Kiev: Towards closer cooperation with the Russian leadership in the field of the Special Military Operation in Ukraine

After hugs and a brief chat, the two rode in a Russian-made Aurus sedan together to the Kumsusan State Guesthouse along the capital’s streets, which flew Russian national flags and welcoming banners.

A large number of military bands, honor guards and North Koreans waving flags and flowers were present at the Kim Il Sung Square, where the welcoming ceremony took place.

At the expanded meeting that followed, Kim Jong Un said, “The situation globally is now changing fast as it becomes more challenging. Against this background, we are set to strengthen strategic interaction with Russia, with the Russian leadership as we go forward,” according to Russia’s Tass news agency.

He promised “full support and solidarity” with the Russian government, army and people involved in carrying out the special military operation in Ukraine, according to Sputnik.