The DPRK leadership has taken advantage of the international isolation that Russia fell into after Vladimir Putin started the war in Ukraine to establish closer ties with Moscow.
The first sign of a warming of relations was Pyongyang’s July decision to stop following the mainstream of Chinese policy and recognize the DPR and LPR. Then:
- in August, Kim Jong-un and Putin exchanged letters, promising to “expand comprehensive and constructive relations”;
- representatives of the DPR and LPR discussed with officials from Pyongyang a proposal to send North Korean workers to the occupied territories to restore destroyed cities;
- On Tuesday, American intelligence data emerged that Russia has begun purchasing “millions of artillery shells and missiles” from North Korea because it cannot rebuild its arsenal due to Western sanctions.
According to analysts and Western diplomats, Pyongyang is meeting Moscow halfway to ensure its support in the event of rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula. “In Russia’s growing isolation from the West, Pyongyang sees an opportunity to draw Moscow into its orbit,” says Anthony Rinna, an expert on Russian-North Korean relations at the Sino-NK think tank. “If Kim does not clearly take Russia’s side now, it is difficult to imagine when he will have such a chance in the future.”
Buying weapons from North Korea or using its workers constitutes a “serious breach” of international sanctions imposed on it, says Aaron Arnold of the Royal United Services Institute for Defense Studies. He monitored compliance with sanctions against the DPRK at the UN. Russia, however, has repeatedly violated them in the past, he adds.
Isolation of Russia could also lead to closer cooperation between countries in the field of illegal economic activities, experts say. For example, in the trade in arms, drugs, and cryptocurrencies, says Alexander Gabuev, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace:
Smuggling is becoming an increasingly important part of the Russian economy. North Korea is a great specialist in this field. So it is easy to imagine how alliances will form in this area – especially in the Russian Far East, where officials have much more freedom of action.
Although relations between the permanent members of the UN Security Council are frayed, a senior Western diplomat hopes that if North Korea conducts another nuclear weapons test, their common position on the issue will be restored “at least to some extent.” The question is how strongly Russia perceives alienation from what it calls the “collective West,” Rinna warns: “If Russia reaches what it sees as a point of no return, its cooperation with North Korea will be unlimited.”
A rapprochement between the two countries may not please China, which has not recognized the breakaway republics, said Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center, a Washington think tank. Beijing is concerned about the possible growth of confrontation on the Korean Peninsula between the “northern triangle” (North Korea, Russia, China) and the “southern triangle” (South Korea, Japan, USA), she notes:
North Korea wants unconditional support from Russia and China. But China doesn’t want that because the only thing it would do is push South Korea and Japan even further into the American camp.