Interview: Where Is The Kim-Putin Pact Leading?
The signing of a “comprehensive strategic partnership” pact between Russia and North Korea during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s June 18th meeting with North Korean General Secretary Kim Jong-un reflects the growing importance of the bilateral relationship to both nations as the West continues its attempts to diplomatically isolate them, with North Korea seemingly acquiring a defensive pact with Russia in exchange for its ongoing supply of artillery munitions, missiles and other military supplies to the Russian war efforts.
Overt Defense had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Victoria Clement, resident Russia subject matter expert at the United States Marine Corps University’s Brute Krulak Center for Innovation and Future Warfare on the visit, the pact, and what to look out for going forward.
All statements and opinions here are made in a personal capacity, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Krulak Center, Marine Corps University, the United States Marine Corps or the United States government.
What are your main takeaways from the visit?
Dr. Clement: By now, everyone knows that Vladimir Putin landed in Pyongyang on June 18th for a meeting with Kim Jong-un. It was not his first time in North Korea, but it was his first time there in 24 years, and he was the first state leader to visit North Korea since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Originally, this meeting was painted as an opportunity to expand bilateral cooperation in education, culture, and tourism, but unsurprisingly, it came to focus on defense and military cooperation. So we see an expansion, or elaboration, of the relationship that they’ve been working towards.
The big takeaway from this is this mutual defense pact that they signed, and the reason why it’s so interesting and potentially so important is because this pact includes a clause that requires the two countries to come to each other’s aid. After the signing of this pact, Kim Jong-un described the situation as having established an “alliance of the highest degree”. Putin, on the other hand, described this as a defensive pact.
So we have two different takes on this, two different perspectives on this. Certainly Kim’s description of an alliance of the highest degree would seem to indicate that “if you are attacked, I will join you”. I think it’s worth noting that Kim’s description of an alliance of the highest degree and Putin’s description of it as a defensive pact, those are things that scholars who study alliances, especially international relations scholars, political scientists, will read and parse the comments on to understand the typology of this alliance. So what needs to happen for us to understand this alliance, is that the text of the pact needs to be made available to us so we can examine it. And then we need readouts from each side, from the North Korean and the Russian side, to get their takes and perspectives on it.
And from there, we can start to really understand what is happening here. Have Russia and North Korea upgraded their relationship? Or have they simply formalized what is already happening, which is that North Korea has been supplying Russia with munitions like artillery shells in exchange for consumer goods, food and technology.
U.S. Department of State spokespersons have made it very clear that the DPRK has been unlawfully transferring dozens of ballistic missiles and over 11,000 containers of munitions to aid Russia’s war effort. We see that, and we have evidence of these munitions ending up on the battlefield in Ukraine, so we know that North Korean materiel is killing Europeans in Europe. This is a really important point that needs to be underscored again and again when thinking about this relationship between these two countries, that we already have this very important exchange taking place.
The South Korean Minister of Defense said a few days before the visit that North Korea has sent approximately 5 million artillery shells to the Russian military. Now, as I mentioned, there’s a barter system going on here, they’re getting things in exchange. We’re pretty sure they’re getting food, consumer goods, but importantly they’re also getting satellite technology from Russia for their space program.
This is not the first time that Putin and Kim have met. Last September, Kim Jong-un met Putin in the easternmost part of Russia, at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Amur Oblast. He got a tour, he got explanations, he got ideas and implications of support from Putin. And I think it’s interesting that at that time, a reporter directly asked Putin whether Russia would be helping North Korea launch its own satellites and rockets. And Putin replied quite plainly, that’s exactly why we came here. So they’re not trying to hide much of this, they’re speaking about it openly.
One thing that we don’t have the strongest evidence for, but we have a lot of suspicion of, is that in May and August 2023, North Korea attempted to launch military satellites into orbit and failed both times. But just two months after that meeting with Putin, they tried again and they succeeded. So many analysts suspect that it’s likely that Russia provided, if not direct technology or scientific assistance, analysis of North Korea’s failures and maybe suggested ways that North Korea could fix the problems that they were experiencing. So at the very least they gave advice, more likely they directly gave scientific information.
Another thing is that this trip that Putin took to Pyongyang is just one half of a two-part tour. He also went to Vietnam, but it’s the trip to Pyongyang that really has drawn the most attention, the most condemnation, the most questions. Essentially, you see this idea of Moscow’s relationship to Pyongyang. It’s being described in the Russian press, the TASS news agency, for example, as an answer to “Asian NATO”. And what they mean by that is the very, very positive relationship between Tokyo, Seoul and Washington D.C. Pyongyang’s perspective on that relationship is that it makes them uncomfortable, as Washington is too close for comfort in that relationship. And while it’s a very media friendly term, the “answer to Asian NATO”, the Tokyo-Seoul-Washington relationship is clearly something that makes Pyongyang very nervous.
And then the final thing I’ll say is that there’s a larger ideological component to this that Putin referenced in an op-ed piece he wrote in the Rodong Sinmun, the North Korean government’s official newspaper. It didn’t tell us very much about Russia’s relationship with North Korea, but it told us a lot about Russia’s relationship and its perspective on the West, NATO and the U.S. specifically.
And in this article he spoke of, and I quote him here, the “heroic Korean people in their struggle against the treacherous, dangerous and aggressive enemy”, the West. This idea that the West is a problem for Moscow and Pyongyang that unites them is something that reaches an almost ideological level for Putin.
That ties into what I was going to ask next – what sort of message do you see this visit sending to the West, both in diplomatic and ideological terms?
There’s an article Foreign Affairs published by Andrea Kendall-Taylor and Richard Fontaine, The Axis of Upheaval, that came out in April. This article really gets into not just North Korea-Russia relations, but also China and Iran.
And it talks about how these four entities are working together in various ways, almost uniting at times. So the specifics in the relationships with Russia is that you see Russia is getting technology from China, it’s getting missiles from North Korea, it’s getting drones from Iran. So there are very specific tangible and tactical relations between these four entities, these four countries. But then there’s also this idea that they are revisionist powers and they would like to change the global order. So there’s an overarching idea and philosophy that is driving all four of these countries, and we saw this again in the meeting between Putin and Kim Jong-un that it was very anti-Western, very revisionist.
Another thing we’re not clear on, but I do have an opinion on, is the Kim-Putin relationship. Is it one of short term convenience, or is it a long term formal commitment? Again, we need to see the readouts, we need to see the treaty they signed. We still don’t know for sure, but I suspect that this is a marriage of convenience between Moscow and Pyongyang.
How does the visit reflect the images Russia and North Korea want to present? North Korea has gained stature with Russia through supplying munitions, but you also had Kim Jong-un himself at the airport at 3AM local time to greet Putin as he stepped off the plane.
I think both of these men used this opportunity to demonstrate that they are not isolated for both their domestic audience and the international audience. How successful they were with the international audience, I think we could debate, because in a big way, Putin came off a little bit pathetic. I mean, this big relationship which he is depicting as important is with a pariah state. And they are most likely violating sanctions laws to maintain the relationship that they have.
So I think it was for the international audience, but probably mostly for domestic audiences in both countries. Kim Jong-un gets to show that he gets this great power visiting him at home. It was reciprocated as his trip to Russia in September was reciprocated by Putin’s visit now. And, then Putin said to Kim, I hope our next meeting will be in Moscow. So they indicate that they intend to keep meeting, keep communicating, and keep working with each other. And this is an ongoing, active relationship.
Do you see the meeting and the Russian so-called ceasefire proposal as attempts to upstage the peace formula meetings that Ukrainian President Zelensky has been holding?
I don’t think that this meeting was necessarily designed to upstage Zelensky because it probably took a long time to plan and it probably wasn’t designed for that.
But yes, I do think that Putin’s so-called peace proposal was definitely designed to attempt to undermine Zelensky and the European leaders who were coming together to discuss a solution. I mean, Putin’s so-called proposal basically said Ukraine had to withdraw from the Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk and Donetsk Oblasts and Crimea, turn them over to Russia, and it had to abandon any future plans to join NATO. I think that Putin’s offer was done specifically to counterbalance the efforts that Zelensky was making at that time.
Russia’s attitude toward North Korea has been moving in a more pro-North Korean direction for a little while now. In March, Moscow’s ambassador to the UN Security Council used his veto power to disband the UN Panel of Experts helping to enforce sanctions on North Korea. Before their disbanding, they were reporting twice a year to the United Nations on what was happening with sanctions on North Korea, trying to make it difficult or impossible for North Korea to develop its nuclear arsenal. Russia made sure that that panel of experts was disbanded.
Now Putin’s making this trip, now he’s inviting Kim to Moscow in the near future. I think that this relationship is only going to continue to become more and more important for us to keep track of.
The Russian state has become more openly authoritarian and more cult-like since the start of the full-scale invasion. Do you see the visit and further exchanges with North Korea as a way to create a Russian version of the North Korean cult of personality to enforce social control?
No, I don’t see that. I don’t see a cult of personality forming around Putin the way we see it in North Korea or some other countries. Putin is an important figure nationally. He holds an enormous amount of power, but even during the March presidential election, when we saw signage that said “za Putin” or “for Putin”; “za Presidenza” or “for the president”, I wouldn’t say that’s a cult of personality, that was just support for him. I don’t see that happening yet, but it’s a good question.
For now, the most cult-like behavior seems to be centered around the St. George’s ribbon or the Z, V, O symbols.
These are important signs and symbols that are connected to this administration, but they’re not about Putin the man. They’re about Putin’s ideas and Putin’s efforts. So as you say, the Z symbol, the St. George’s ribbon are good things to mention.
Do you have any closing thoughts?
As I was saying, I think that the relationship between Russia and North Korea is going to continue to get closer. We’ll see how China feels about this. In the West, we must keep watching this, as a lot of us are very focused on Ukraine and Europe, but we can’t forget about the relationships in Asia because they impact the situation in Europe as well.
Header image: Kim Jong Un and Putin in a Limo gifted to Un by the Russian president (Korean Central News Agency)