On October 23, 2024, during the first summit of G7 defense ministers, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin confirmed that North Korea was preparing to send several thousand troops to Russia. According to the South Korean Ministry of Defense, 3,000 North Korean soldiers are already present on Russian territory. This sending of troops represents an additional step in military cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang, which was formalized by the signing of a strategic partnership during Vladimir Putin’s visit to North Korea in June 2024. This turning point in relations bilateral is accompanied by an intensification of missile launches by North Korea in the run-up to the presidential elections in the United States. In particular, on October 30, 2024, North Korea tested an intercontinental missile, the first since December 2023. This solid fuel missile, which traveled a distance of 7,000 kilometers – greater than that of previous launches – could indicate a strengthening of technological cooperation with Russia, implying significant progress in motorization.
A strategic partnership in action…
Since 2022, North Korea has provided significant material aid to Russia, initially allowing it to fill gaps in the Russian defense industry. Pyongyang reportedly supplied nearly three million shells and several dozen ballistic missiles to Russia transported from the port of Rason in North Korea. France, like Japan, denounced the use of these missiles against Ukraine alongside 47 other countries. In June 2024, Vladimir Putin visited North Korea where a strategic partnership including a mutual assistance clause was signed. The treaty provides that “in the event of war resulting from armed invasion, both parties will offer mutual military or other assistance”. This framework could justify sending additional Korean forces to the Kursk region or to the Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia.
Cooperation could also extend to the space domain. The head of the Russian space agency was part of the delegation accompanying Vladimir Putin to Korea and Pyongyang may be interested in developing a space surveillance system under Russian auspices.
…meeting various objectives
Crucial economic aid
Several ministers responsible for the economy were part of the Russian delegation visiting Pyongyang in June 2024. For North Korea, support for Russia is of crucial economic interest, especially for a country still subject to international sanctions. This assistance would include the supply of energy, particularly coal – essential as winter approaches –, oil, essential for the proper functioning of the armed forces, as well as food products, which continue to be in short supply. Russia also reportedly agreed to transfer $9 million in foreign currency to North Korea, out of a total of $30 million frozen in Russian banks.. These elements – energy, food and foreign currency – are vital to the survival of the North Korean regime.
Strengthened military support
Increased military support for North Korea is also an important part of trade between Moscow and Pyongyang. This cooperation allows North Korea to test its military capabilities in a war situation, particularly in the ballistic field, and to improve the performance of its missiles, which still seem limited in terms of precision. By providing military support to North Korea, Russia strengthens its ability to wage and potentially win a conflict in the event of an offensive against South Korea. The participation of North Korean soldiers and officers in the fighting in Ukraine also provides the regime with an opportunity to assess the operational skills of its troops, who have not fought since the end of the Korean War in 1953.
However, information remains divergent regarding the degree of integration of North Korean troops and officers and their level of operational autonomy. According to some North Korean sources, six officers were killed in a Russian-controlled area in eastern Ukraine.
For Japan and its partners, a key question is the scale and nature of the assistance that Russia could provide to North Korea on the development of its ballistic and nuclear program, which could accelerate and strengthen it its credibility. Unlike Russia, North Korea has never conducted an atmospheric nuclear test, and Moscow could pass valuable information on this to Pyongyang. This assistance could also concern missile targeting capabilities, or even the production of tactical nuclear weapons and torpedoes equipped with a nuclear charge.
Russia’s position on the North Korean nuclear issue has indeed undergone a significant evolution. After having long supported, in the Security Council, the resolutions aimed at sanctioning North Korea, Moscow opposed, in March 2024, its veto to the renewal of the mandate of the group of experts responsible for monitoring the application of the sanctions provided for by the resolution 1718. In June 2024, during his visit to Pyongyang, Vladimir Putin also called for a review of the sanctions regime imposed by the Security Council, including those targeting North Korea.
The diplomatic impact of North Korea’s engagement alongside Russia
North Korea’s involvement alongside Russia in the conflict in Ukraine consolidates its diplomatic position on the international scene. The rapprochement between Moscow and Pyongyang also increases North Korea’s room for maneuver and potential for pressure on Russia, Japan, as well as China. Pyongyang is thus seeking to regain a strategic position comparable to that it occupied before the fall of the USSR, when the Sino-Soviet conflict allowed a triangular game more favorable to North Korean interests.
Thus, Vladimir Putin’s trip to Pyongyang, as well as his visit to Vietnam, probably did not satisfy Beijing, which favors massively asymmetrical relations, where the People’s Republic of China occupies a dominant position. It is also doubtful whether Russia or North Korea informed the Chinese Communist Party of the sending of North Korean troops to Russia. Although China maintains a “limitless partnership” with Russia and is linked to North Korea by a military treaty, the interests of these three actors diverge, particularly with regard to the Korean peninsula. If the PRC is not ready to abandon its North Korean ally, which constitutes a buffer state against South Korea and the American presence, Beijing is unfavorable to anything which could encourage the North Korean leaders to climbing in the peninsula. Faced with growing economic difficulties, and the election of an unpredictable American president, the PRC seeks above all the absence of uncontrolled tensions in its immediate environment.
Strategic benefits for China
At the same time, China could welcome the prolongation of the conflict in Ukraine, which the increased participation of North Korean forces could favor if they became more numerous. This war increases the pressure on Europe and contributes to dividing the allies, especially with the return to power of Donald Trump. It could also distract European attention from the question of Taiwan and stability in the Strait, although Japan regularly insists on the existence of a direct link, due to this reinforced cooperation with Moscow, between the war in Ukraine and a potential risk of conflict in Asia.
-Another benefit of the continuation of the war in Ukraine for Beijing lies in the weakening of Russia as the conflict drags on, thus making the limitless Sino-Russian partnership ever more asymmetrical in favor of China.
The limits of Russian-North Korean cooperation
Several factors could, however, weigh on North Korea’s continued engagement alongside Russia. Sending troops, whose supposed elite quality remains to be proven, could on the contrary reveal weaknesses in the combat preparation of North Korean forces. If this commitment involves real participation in combat, it would offer South Korea the opportunity to analyze and better understand the modes of action of North Korean forces, in particular the role of political commissars and officers, especially if these troops benefit from operational autonomy — which remains uncertain.
Furthermore, South Korea could use this opportunity to carry out psychological warfare operations against North Korean soldiers, most of whom have no combat experience. Their motivation could be questionable, and the trial by fire could cause psychological shock, thus encouraging defections.
Increased risks for regional strategic stability
If the entry of North Korean troops undoubtedly does not sign a massive internationalization of the war in Ukraine, this escalation could have consequences on strategic stability in Asia, the maintenance of which constitutes a common concern for Japan and France.
With its new combat experience, North Korea could be more aggressive, increasing provocations against South Korea, at the risk of slipping.
The question of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is also raised. According to South Korean sources, North Korea has completed preparations to carry out a new nuclear test, which could however await the “enthronement” of the new American president Donald Trump and an assessment of the evolution of relations between Pyongyang and Washington under the new administration, North Korea being in any case not ready to abandon its acquired nuclear capability.
An immediate concern for Japan
The strengthening of North Korean capabilities and the potential threat of conflict on the peninsula awakens in Japan the fear of a conflict on two fronts, the other front being the Taiwan Strait, to which the Japanese-American alliance would have to confront face. Faced with this possibility of two integrated theaters of operations in Asia, the response for Tokyo can only be the strengthening of this alliance, as well as that of its own defense capabilities, including the acquisition of long-range strike capabilities. intended to have a deterrent effect. Following the election of Donald Trump, Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba immediately reaffirmed the centrality of the Japanese-American alliance, the cornerstone of security in Asia. On the occasion of the APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit held in Lima in November 2024, Prime Minister Ishiba, President Yoon and President Biden reaffirmed the strategic importance, in duration of trilateral cooperation between Japan, South Korea and the United States. The three allies recalled that European and Asian security issues, with the sending of North Korean troops to Russia, were increasingly inseparable.
However, in Asia as in Europe, on the Korean peninsula as in Ukraine, the main question concerns – for the moment unanswered – the choices that the new Trump administration will make in matters of defense and security. North Korea, contrary to expectations, could be satisfied with the election of a president who had agreed to meet the leader North Korean, even if the meeting did not lead to any progress in terms of nuclear proliferation.
Furthermore, by possibly supporting an agreement on Ukraine taking into account Moscow’s demands, the United States could offer new room for maneuver to Russia, which would then be less dependent on China and – to a lesser extent – of the “Global South”. We can then wonder about a possible return to a less tense relationship with Japan, also concerned by the rise in power of China and by the desire to best manage the question of the northern territories (Kouriles).
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