Would North Korean weapons tilt the war Russia’s way?

The sale of North Korean weapons to Russia is likely to be high on the agenda when the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, travels to Moscow later this month to meet Vladimir Putin.

Last week, Washington said arms negotiations between the countries were “actively advancing”. Now CBS News reports that the two leaders will discuss military support for Russia’s war effort, raising concerns about the effect such a deal could have on the war and the wider geopolitical map.

What did the papers say?

In June, Kim vowed to “hold hands” with Putin and said the Russians had North Korea’s “full support and solidarity” for their “all-out struggle” in Ukraine. Then last week, the White House claimed that Putin and Kim had exchanged letters discussing a possible arms deal, but news of a planned meeting between them “goes far beyond the previous warning”, said The New York Times (NYT).

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Moscow is keen to secure weapons to replace its own “depleted stocks”, said The Guardian. With the Russian military “quickly using up its munitions”, Putin is expected to “build on recent high-level diplomatic exchanges… to secure North Korean artillery shells and antitank missiles”, the paper added.

Pyongyang delivered infantry rockets and missiles to Russia for use by Wagner forces last year, and a new agreement could see Russia receive “multiple types of munitions from the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea]”, said National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, as well as “raw materials that would assist Russia’s defense industrial base”.

Kim knows that Moscow is “desperate” for munitions and the price that he will ask for them will be “eye-wateringly high”, John Everard, who served as UK ambassador to North Korea between 2006 and 2008, told the BBC. But Everard also said North Korea’s stockpiles of weapons are in “very poor condition”, so the influence they could have on the war may be limited.

Indeed, noted the NYT, when North Korea shipped munitions to Russia through the Middle East and North Africa, “few if any” North Korean weapons actually “made it to the front lines in Ukraine”.

Nevertheless, the “strengthening of the Russia-North Korea alliance comes at an opportune time for two countries with very few allies and a shared adversary in the United States”, Jean H. Lee, a recent senior fellow at the Wilson Center, told the NYT, as it’s the “resurrection of a traditional alliance that serves the strategic interests of both Putin and Kim”.

The White House has tried to “deter” countries like China and North Korea from providing arms to Russia’s military, said Al Jazeera, as it considers Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine an attack on the country’s sovereignty. Earlier this month, the US government imposed sanctions on three entities it accused of being tied to arms deals between North Korea and Russia.

So there is “undoubtedly concern in Washington, Tokyo and Seoul about what both Russia and North Korea could get out of a military cooperation deal”, said The Telegraph. But Putin, “bogged down in his war with Ukraine”, will certainly be keen to secure arms from Pyongyang, it added.

What next?

In a “rare foray from his country”, Kim would travel from Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, probably by armoured train, to Vladivostok, on the Pacific coast of Russia, said the NYT. If he and Putin agree an arms deal, there could be escalatory consequences: Kirby has warned the US would take action, including imposing sanctions, if North Korea did supply Russia with weapons.

However, said The Telegraph, “there remains the possibility that Kim’s trip may never take place”, because “the reclusive leader is famously paranoid about his security, rarely stepping beyond the sealed borders of his regime”. Everard agreed, saying the sudden flurry of publicity around the possible trip is a “strong reason why the visit is now unlikely to take place”.

But there are reports that North Korea could take part in joint naval drills with Russia and China, said The Guardian. “Why not, these are our neighbours,” said Russia’s defence minister Sergei Shoigu when asked about the exercises, according to Russia’s Interfax news agency. “There’s an old Russian saying: you don’t choose your neighbours and it’s better to live with your neighbours in peace and harmony.”