The US and its allies are on the alert about North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s reported plans to visit Russia.
Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin intend to discuss the possibility of North Korea supplying weapons to Moscow in the Ukraine war, US officials say.
On the surface, an arms deal between the two countries makes all the transactional sense in the world.
Moscow desperately needs weapons, particularly artillery ammunition and bombs, for the war in Ukraine. Pyongyang, for its part, has an excess of both.
On the other hand, a North Korea impoverished by sanctions needs both arms and money. After three years of border closures, not to mention the collapse of talks with the US in 2019, the country was left more isolated than ever.
But deep down, any deal opens up the potential for Pyongyang and Moscow to work more closely.
The US has been warning about a possible arms pact between the two for some time, but a face-to-face meeting between the two leaders would catapult this alliance to a new stage.
What is at stake
Although it seems that for the US the priority is to prevent North Korean weapons from entering the Ukrainian fronts (at least for the moment), the concern in Seoul has to do with what North Korea would receive if it sold its weapons to Russia.
Given the dire straits the Kremlin is negotiating in, Kim could command a higher price, such as requesting more military support from Russia.
Yesterday, the South Korean intelligence service reported that Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu had suggested joint naval exercises, similar to those carried out by the US with South Korea and Japan and which Kim Jong Un somewhat hates.
Kim could also place an order for Russian weapons in the future.
But by far the most troubling request that Kim can make of Putin is to hand over weapons technology or know-how to advance his nuclear program.
Even today, North Korea has trouble perfecting key strategic weapons, mainly a spy satellite and a nuclear submarine.
In Seoul they see any cooperation at these levels as “unlikely” as it could end up being strategically dangerous for Russia.
Yang Uk, a researcher at the Asian Institute for Public Policy Studies, comments that although Russia does not sell weapons to North Korea in the exchange, it could still be supporting its nuclear program.
“If Russia pays up in oil and food, it can revive North Korea’s economy, which could in turn strengthen the country’s weapons program. It is an extra income that they are going to have that they did not have before”.
The dilemma at the UN
Yang, an expert on military strategy and weapons strategies, added: “We have been trying to set up a sanctions structure against North Korea for 15 years to stop the development and sharing of weapons of mass destruction. And now Russia, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, It could be the cause of this whole system collapsing.”.
As sanctions have been ratcheted up, North Korea has become increasingly reliant on China turning a blind eye to those policies, and supplying it with food.
Over the past year, Beijing has refused to sanction North Korea over its weapons tests from the UN Security Council.which means you can advance your arsenal without much consequence.
North Korea provides a buffer zone for China with US troops stationed in South Korea.
But for Pyongyang, the idea of relying too heavily on China is unsettling. Seeking allies in Russia gives Kim an opportunity to diversify his support network.
And with Russia’s desperation, the North Korean leader may even feel he can get better benefits from Moscow than he could from Beijing.
Putin could agree to keep quiet about North Korea’s nuclear tests, something that could be too much for President Xi.
“During the Cold War, North Korea was aiming to play off the Russians and the Chinese, in much the same way that kids play off their parents,” said Bernard Loo of the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. .
The meeting question
The question still remains as to whether the meeting will take place.
Kim does not tend to leave North Korea. He is paranoid about his safety and sees travel abroad as fraught with danger.
For his latest international trips – to Hanoi, where he met President Donald Trump in February 2019, and to meet Putin in Vladivostok in April 2019 – He traveled on an armored train. The journey to Hanoi took two days, via China.
It’s unclear how badly the two leaders wanted to hide their meeting. But it is possible that the US made it public as a strategy, with the intention of scaring Kim and, incidentally, making the meeting fall, and the possible agreement on arms.
Part of the US strategy since the Russian invasion of Ukraine is to publish intelligence to try to prevent agreements.
North Korea and Russia have so far denied any suggestion that they are planning to swap weapons.
And it’s also unlikely that either side wanted a deal made public.
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