Kim Jong Un is now directly aiding Russia’s war in Ukraine. What does he want in return?
How is North Korea helping Russia?
The Hermit Kingdom’s supreme leader, Kim Jong Un, last month deployed 10,000 of his country’s most elite troops to Russia’s Far East to train in Russian uniforms, with Russian weapons, alongside Russian soldiers. By last week, some of them were already seeing combat in Kursk, a Russian border region that Ukraine invaded in August in an effort to regain momentum in Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II. The manpower assistance is a direct result of the security pact Kim signed with Russian President Vladimir Putin in June, during Putin’s first visit to North Korea in 24 years, which provides for mutual defense in the event of an external attack. The North Korean troops will help shore up the Russian military, which has suffered an estimated 650,000 casualties in the two years since it invaded Ukraine. It’s a huge escalation from Pyongyang’s earlier support for Moscow’s war effort, which included providing millions of artillery rounds as well as anti-tank rockets and ballistic missiles.
What is North Korea getting out of this?
The cash-strapped dictatorship is receiving food and oil from Russia, which helps alleviate its dependence on China, as well as upgrades to its satellite and rocket technology. But that’s not all. By deploying to Russia’s front line, North Korea’s military—which hasn’t fought in a large-scale war since it invaded South Korea in 1950—is gaining invaluable battlefield experience. Its soldiers are getting a close look at Western defenses and learning how to use drones and electronic warfare. And now Putin owes Kim. “Sending weapons is one thing, but sending your own men is another level,” said Rachel Lee, a North Korea expert at the Stimson Center. If things heat up on the Korean Peninsula, Kim has “reason to count on Russia.” South Korea fears that could mean Russian weapons or even troops being deployed against it in the event of war.
Does Seoul expect open conflict?
The signs are worrying. Reversing the long-standing policy of his father and grandfather, who both sought reunification of the two Koreas, Kim Jong Un in January declared the South his “principal enemy.” This year, he has demolished the reunification monument erected by his father, Kim Jong Il; dismantled reconciliation agencies; and ramped up a Cold War-style psychological campaign, sending thousands of helium balloons across the border to drop bags of trash and propaganda leaflets on the South. In October, North Korea dynamited the unused rail and road links between the two countries that had been built, aspirationally, some two decades ago. North Korea said it was responding to South Korean provocation, claiming Seoul had flown drones over Pyongyang. But it may have also been trying to get the attention of the U.S.: In recent weeks, North Korea has tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile as well as a flurry of short-range missiles.
What does Kim want from the U.S.?
Possibly economic aid. North Korea is desperately poor, with nearly half its population malnourished. Successive U.S. administrations tried to keep it from going nuclear by offering aid and sanctions relief and then, after that failed, tried to persuade it to denuclearize using the same carrots. Each time, North Korea would accept whatever it could get and then renege on its promises. In 2018, it looked as if that cycle might be broken when then-President Donald Trump took the unprecedented step of meeting with Kim and even traveling to the North, but ultimately nothing came of the brief thaw in relations. The Kim dynasty has always seen the U.S., South Korea’s defender, as an existential threat—and nuclear weapons as its only protection against a U.S. attempt at regime change. In the last few years, Kim has expanded his stockpile to some 50 nuclear warheads and enough material to build 40 more, raising concerns in both the U.S. and South Korea.
Does the U.S. expect him to attack South Korea?
Not immediately. While Kim is certainly “laying the groundwork” for an invasion, “North Korea is not ready to attack,” said Andrew Yeo of the Brookings Institution. There have been no signs of military preparations such as troop mobilization, and the regime would hardly send some of its best-trained troops to Russia if it were plotting war at home. Threatening the U.S. and then backing down after getting some economic relief is its modus operandi. Still, with Trump returning to the presidency, Kim’s actions are unpredictable. A provocation on the border could tumble the two Koreas into conflict inadvertently—and the U.S. is committed by treaty to South Korea’s defense. There are also tempting American targets right in the neighborhood: Camp Humphreys, the Army’s largest overseas base with 28,500 troops plus 12,000 contractors and military family members, lies a mere 60 miles from the demilitarized zone.
Should the U.S. be worried?
Just days before the U.S. election, North Korea successfully launched a test of an intercontinental ballistic missile that flew for 86 minutes, the longest it had yet achieved. That shows the country is closer than ever to a nuclear weapon that can hit the U.S. mainland. “I don’t think it’s particularly controversial to say that the defense of the homeland against nuclear attack should be a primary consideration in the formation of U.S. policy,” said Ankit Panda, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “We need to be vigilant.”
Trump and Kim: A love affair?
President Trump has had a love-hate relationship with Kim. In his first year in office, Trump threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea after Kim—whom he nicknamed “little rocket man”—conducted a showy series of nuclear tests. Less than a year later, though, Trump had warmed to Kim, and the two exchanged over two dozen personal letters. “We fell in love,” Trump said of his pen pal. He met with Kim three times to discuss North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, even becoming the first sitting U.S. president to set foot on North Korean soil, and he halted the regular U.S. military exercises with the South. But Kim insisted that he would only reduce his nukes after the U.S. lifted economic sanctions, and the détente fell apart. While Trump appears optimistic that he can restore goodwill in his second term, saying that Kim “misses me,” North Korea’s alliance with Russia has hardened its commitment to defying the West. “We will only deal with the state entity called the U.S.,” said North Korean ambassador to the U.N. Kim Song, “not the mere administration.”
