Are Russia and North Korea set to become closest allies? Drained reserves trigger friendship

On September 13, the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un arrived in Russia upon the invitation of his counterpart Vladimir Putin, a rare encounter between isolated leaders driven together by their need for support in escalating standoffs with the West. Kim is expected to seek economic aid and military technology for his impoverished country and, in a twist, appears to have something Putin desperately needs: munitions for Russia's war in Ukraine.

U.S. officials, who first said the visit was imminent, said arms talks between Russia and North Korea were actively advancing and that Kim and Putin were likely to discuss providing Russia with weapons for the war in Ukraine. As for Pyongyang, it is a chance for the North Korean leader to get around crippling U.N. sanctions and years of diplomatic isolation.

The meeting with Putin is Kim’s first with a foreign leader since North Korea closed its borders in January 2020. They met for the first time in April 2019, two months after Kim’s high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with then-U.S. President Donald Trump collapsed.

The meeting underscores deepening cooperation as the two isolated leaders are locked in separate confrontations with the United States. In return for providing ammunition, North Korea will likely want shipments of food and energy and transfers of sophisticated weapons technologies.

Notably, amid its tactical losses in Ukraine, Russia desperately seeks assistance from its historical partners, namely China and North Korea, to refill its shrinking ammunition stockpiles.

Indeed, such a request would mark a reversal of roles from the 1950-53 Korean War, when the Soviet Union provided ammunition, warplanes and pilots to support communist North Korea's invasion of the South and the decades of Soviet sponsorship of the North that followed.

For a start, much to Pyongyang’s chagrin, Russia is not, in fact, an ally of North Korea, unlike the Soviet Union. Since the current cooperation agreement was signed between the two countries back in 2000, Moscow's policy on North Korea has consisted mainly of backing Beijing: voting for U.N. sanctions agreed upon with China and vetoing those that China didn’t like.

For all of Pyongyang’s efforts to diversify its trade relations away from China, economic ties between Russia and North Korea are practically non-existent. Regarding its rhetoric on North Korea's nuclear missile program, Moscow also follows China's lead, condemning it when China does so and showing more understanding when Beijing does the same.

Despite a relatively high trade partnership, Pyongyang became one of few countries to recognise the annexed Crimea as Russian territory, hoping to receive some economic incentive in return. However, due to the mounting international pressure and Pyongyag’s tensions with South Korea, Japan, and the Philippines, Russia preferred to keep its distance from North Korea.

The growing isolationism pushed North Korea to strengthen its pro-nuclear war rhetoric against its immediate vicinity.

Nonetheless, with the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, Moscow sought a closer alliance with Beijing and Pyongyang shortly after it started losing ground and suffering enormous human casualties. Despite long-term alliance and mutual praise, there is no hard evidence available that North Korea is genuinely supplying Russia with ammunition.

However, in January 2023, the White House released satellite imagery of arms transfers from North Korea to the Wagner paramilitary group taking place at the Tumangang–Khasan railroad crossing on November 18 and 19 of last year.

Some analysts argue that Moscow and Pyongyang could go for a more pragmatic military partnership, which means Russia could boost North Korea's nuclear program and, in exchange, receive additional armouries.

As such, Russia could provide Pyongyang with the technological know-how it needs to effectively or successfully launch nuclear warheads on its long-range missiles, as the former has at least a significant amount of that technology.

Consequently, buying munitions from North Korea would be a violation of United Nations resolutions, supported by Russia, that ban all arms trade with the isolated country. But now that it faces international sanctions and export controls over its war in Ukraine, Russia has been seeking weapons from other sanctioned countries such as North Korea and Iran.

Even though Moscow and Pyongyang will agree on the issue, North Korea will be unable to dispatch a large amount of armour to Russia swiftly because the narrow land link between the countries can handle only a limited amount of rail traffic.

Indeed, Russia needs military aid from North Korea in light of the critical situation in Ukraine, while the former seeks deeper economic ties with Moscow due to the existing problems in the post-COVID period, such as food and energy, to address shortfalls.

In terms of geopolitics, North Korea and Russia need to show that they’re working together, that they’re stepping up this cooperation to strengthen anti-Western flanks and resist the international sanctions and alliance.