President Putin Strengthens Ties with North Korea in Official Visit
04:13 GMT 19.06.2024 (Updated: 08:32 GMT 19.06.2024)
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The Russian leader’s visit to the DPRK this week is a reciprocal gesture following North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s visit to Russia in September. Putin will then travel to Vietnam at the invitation of Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.
Russian President Vladimir Putin approved a new comprehensive strategic partnership agreement with North Korea on Tuesday, Sputnik reported. While the signature is primarily “symbolic," one analyst told Sputnik, the accepted proposal will “outline the prospects for further cooperation” and will be seen as a global message to others.
Mark Sleboda, a Moscow-based international relations security analyst joined The Critical Hour on Tuesday to discuss Russia and North Korea’s recent partnership.
“Putin has arrived in Pyongyang with a pretty heavy delegation,” Sleboda said. “In many ways a bit smaller, but it is also reminiscent of the very large entourage that Putin just went to China with.”
“Putin [arrived] to a lot of fanfare,” said Sleboda. “Putin even penned an article in North Korea's, the DPRK's daily newspaper and his, Putin is kind of known for his measured, low key, pragmatic, calculated rhetoric, I would say, over the last two decades. This is not that Putin [who] wrote that article.”
“He said Russia has continuously supported and will support the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea (DPRK) and the heroic Korean people in their struggle against the treacherous, dangerous and aggressive enemy in their fight for independence, identity and the right to freely choose their development path. He also thanked North Korea for their unwavering support for the Russian special military operation in Ukraine,” the security analyst said.
“And he also described Pyongyang as our committed and like-minded supporter ready to confront the ambition of the collective West, which is, he says, to prevent the emergence of a multipolar world order based on justice, mutual respect for sovereignty and consideration of each other's interests. And he noted that the 'rules-based order' the US has been trying to impose on the world [...] is nothing more than a global neocolonial dictatorship that relies on double standards.”
The analyst said that Russia’s decision to sign a strategic partnership is “reminiscent” of what many Western countries have done with Ukraine. He then added that North Korea has “long been a thorn” in the US side since they began developing nuclear weapons. In May, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev warned that Ukraine and its allies would receive a “devastating response” to the possible use of long-range Western weapons on Russian territory.
“Not only, of course, was that recent comment from Medvedev, but last year, South Korea - not openly admitting it, but Korean and US officials have leaked confirming this to the press - that South Korea transferred millions of artillery shells to the US to hand off to Ukraine for use in the conflict there,” Sleboda claimed.
Earlier, the Washington Post reported that South Korea had become a larger supplier of 155 mm artillery ammunition to Ukraine than all European countries combined. However, there were suggestions that the shipments were indirect and the ammunition was transferred to the US to allow it to supply its ammunition to Ukraine. South Korea denied direct ammunition deliveries to Ukraine.
“That was instrumental for the Kiev regime to launch its failed NATO proxy summer counteroffensive last year. Those were largely South Korean and also Japanese shells.”
“[It’s] widely assumed that what North Korea is getting out of all of their cooperation deals with Russia is Russian knowledge, Russian experience, helping with their space program, including the launch of sophisticated satellite reconnaissance. Satellites which will be in aid to their own missile program more than likely. There is, of course, a great deal of dual-use similitude between space program and missile program - missile launch program.”
