“The staging of the rapprochement between Moscow and Pyongyang is above all a very effective way of putting pressure on Seoul”

2023-09-11 20:19:57
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu at an arms exhibition July 26 in Pyongyang. AP

After twenty months of war in Ukraine, has the lack of arms and allies forced Russia to turn to North Korea? North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will conduct a ” official visit “ in Russia “in the next few days”confirmed the Kremlin on Monday, September 11, without giving a specific date for a meeting with Vladimir Putin, to whom he could sell the weapons and ammunition that his troops lack, according to the White House.

The summit could take place in Vladivostok, on Russia’s Pacific coast, where the Eastern Economic Forum will take place September 10-13, according to the New York Timeswhich quotes members of the American administration.

The Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigu, visited North Korea at the end of July, where he attended, alongside Kim Jong-un, the military parade organized for the 70th anniversary of the armistice of the Korean War . This visit, it is said in Washington, was intended “to convince Pyongyang to sell artillery ammunition to Russia”, reputed to be both abundant and compatible with its own weapons, insofar as a good part comes from Soviet arsenals. North Korea, for its part, is reportedly seeking cutting-edge technologies to develop its own arsenal, as well as food aid and foreign currency to deal with recurring shortages.

Already considered a pariah state, it has everything to gain from the creation of a commercial, even strategic, axis, with Russia also banned from the international community. Their respective interests seem to converge to such an extent that military cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow seems “inevitable”, in the eyes of Cho Han-bum, a researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification. However, this is not the opinion of Antoine Bondaz, researcher at the Foundation for Strategic Research, teacher at Sciences Po and director of the Observatory of Multilateralism in the Indo-Pacific.

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What do you think of the summit between Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un which seems to be looming?

It would be important and symbolic because it would be Kim Jong-un’s first international outing and even the first North Korean participation in a summit since early 2020 and the pandemic. This would testify to the diplomatic reopening of the country, to its orientation towards its traditional non-Western partners. It would be a strong event.

Sergei Shoigu also went to Pyongyang in July, which was very noticed. Especially since it was the first time that a Russian leader attended a North Korean military parade in which nuclear missiles were presented, which amounts to de facto legitimizing the country’s nuclear and ballistic program, which is irresponsible from Russia.

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