Vladimir Putin’s dangerous bromance with Kim Jong Un

KIM JONG UN has a new best friend. Out is Donald Trump, who exchanged saccharine letters but spurned him at a summit in Hanoi in 2019. In is Vladimir Putin, who has courted Mr Kim for weapons to fuel his war in Ukraine. Mr Kim has made two trips to Russia’s Far East to meet Mr Putin since 2019. On June 19th Mr Putin arrived in Pyongyang for his first visit since 2000, the year he made his debut as president. Though he landed at close to 3am local time, Mr Kim was waiting on a red carpet on the tarmac to meet him. The two leaders later signed a strategic partnership agreement, promising to come to each other’s aid when facing aggression.

The relationship has blossomed thanks to geopolitical shifts. Mr Kim turned away from talks with America following the failed summit in Hanoi and began making fresh overtures to Russia. The response was lukewarm—until Mr Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine floundered and Russia came to need munitions, one of the few things Mr Kim’s regime has in abundance. But the implications of the realignment go beyond the weapons trade. “It’s a mistake to think about it simply as an arms deal,” says Jenny Town of the Stimson Centre, an American think-tank.

The new agreement is evidence of the deepening relationship, bringing the two nations closer than at any time since the Cold War. Mr Putin spoke of a pledge to provide “mutual aid” in case of “aggression” against either country; Mr Kim said it amounted to “alliance relations”. According to the text of the treaty published by North Korea’s official news agency, the commitments echo the guarantees of immediate military assistance enshrined in a treaty signed between the Soviet Union and North Korea in 1961.

Both leaders cast their partnership as a rebuke to an American-led world order. For Russia, co-operation with North Korea helps to complicate American strategy in Asia and to undermine multilateral institutions. Russia earlier this year vetoed a United Nations resolution to extend the mandate of the Panel of Experts, the main international body for monitoring sanctions on North Korea; in Pyongyang Mr Putin called for an end to the UN sanctions regime (which Russia once supported). Russia also aims to deter further support for Ukraine, in particular from South Korea, a big arms producer and American ally, which has so far refrained from providing direct lethal aid. Mr Putin threatened deeper “military-technical” partnership with North Korea if Ukraine continued to receive advanced weapons systems.

Russia has proved a godsend in a time of need for North Korea. Mr Kim was isolated abroad and diminished at home following the debacle in Hanoi; years of sanctions and the covid-19 pandemic had not helped, either. Summitry with Mr Putin has burnished Mr Kim’s image and improved his diplomatic position. With both Russia and China behind it, North Korea has little incentive to engage with America. It can also play the two powers off against each other. “It is the biggest strategic opportunity for North Korea since the end of the Cold War,” says Ankit Panda of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think-tank in Washington. Trade with Russia has also helped stabilise the North Korean economy. The new agreement includes a range of economic and cultural measures, including the construction of a bridge across the river that forms their border, the first for cars.

In Mr Kim’s and Mr Putin’s discussions, munitions will have been front of mind. American officials allege that North Korea has shipped 11,000 containers filled with arms to Russia since September. The goods include artillery shells—South Korea’s defence minister suggests as many as 5m rounds—as well as Hwasong-11 class ballistic missiles, which have been linked to dozens of deaths across Ukraine. Much of the material is of dubious quality, but it has nonetheless helped Russia buy time to ramp up its own production, says a Ukrainian official. During their latest talks Mr Kim promised Mr Putin “full support” in the ongoing conflict.

What Russia has given in return stirs much speculation. South Korea’s government estimates that at least 9,000 containers have been sent from Russia to North Korea since last September. North Korea’s wish-list probably includes nuclear-weapons designs, re-entry vehicles for intercontinental ballistic missiles, as well as technology related to satellites, submarines and hypersonic weapons. Russia could also provide less flashy but still important support for North Korea’s conventional forces, such as spare parts for aircraft or ships, and more modern air defences.

South Korean officials say that Russia has yet to transfer sensitive technology related to ballistic missiles or nuclear weapons. One area of more immediate concern is space. Mr Panda reckons that a recent North Korean satellite launch attempt may have deployed a variant of an engine used in Russia’s Angara system, which Russia has at a cosmodrome that Mr Kim toured last autumn. For now, food and fuel probably make up the bulk of the trade. Mr Putin also gave Mr Kim a Russian-made limousine in February, and a second one during his latest trip—in pointed defiance of UN sanctions, which bar the export of luxury goods to North Korea.

Yet such seeming affection belies the limits to the friendship. While Russia may flout international sanctions, that does not mean it will rush to help North Korea expand its nuclear arsenal. Russia can extract concessions without giving up its most sensitive technology; as its own production ramps up, its need for North Korean shells may wane. South Korea, in turn, can threaten more support for Ukraine to enforce its red lines.

The partnership will probably last as long as the war in Ukraine. But it may not endure beyond it. In the long run, South Korea is a more attractive economic partner; it was Russia’s fifth-largest export destination in 2021. Russia seems keen to keep the door open: its ambassador to Seoul recently said he expects South Korea to be “first among unfriendly countries to return to the ranks of friendly countries”. Few Russians want to be associated with North Korea, which they consider a synonym for dysfunction, in contrast to the economic powerhouse that is China.

China itself can also shape how deep Russia’s and North Korea’s co-operation grows. “It’s not a bilateral relationship—big brother is always watching from Beijing,” says Fyodor Tertitskiy of Kookmin University in Seoul. China’s feelings appear mixed. Its diplomats did not stop Russia from killing off the UN sanctions panel. But during a recent summit with South Korea and Japan, China endorsed a call for the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, drawing a rebuke from Mr Kim’s regime. China’s primary interests are to maintain North Korea as a stable buffer state between itself and American-allied South Korea, as well as to retain influence over Pyongyang; closer military ties between Russia and North Korea could threaten these aims.

China also appears keen to avoid the appearance that the three belong to a single bloc. “China wants to be a global leader, not a rogue,” says Lee Sang-hyun of the Sejong Institute, a think-tank in Seoul. Mr Putin reportedly wanted to travel on to Pyongyang earlier, immediately after a visit to Beijing last month, but China suggested that he should wait. The picture that emerges is less of a neat authoritarian axis and more of a messy love triangle. ■