SEOUL, South Korea — How many 152 mm artillery shells could be bartered for an SU-57 stealth fighter bomber? How many days of work by a company of North Korean laborers will get you an aid package of food and fuel? How many 122 mm tactical rockets buy a satellite launch?
These may be some of the calculations after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his delegation returned home Monday from a closely watched, unexpectedly expansive six-day traipse around Russia’s Far East.
It is unknown whether Moscow and Pyongyang approved any deals during Mr. Kim’s trip, but Russian President Vladimir Putin showed up for one-on-one talks and gave Mr. Kim a peek at various military technologies at multiple sensitive sites.
Pyongyang portrayed the visit as a relationship reset — “an opportunity to further solidify the traditional bond of good-neighborhood cooperation between the two countries, which are rooted in comradely friendship and military unity, and to open a new chapter in the development of relations,” according to North Korean state media.
The USSR helped establish the North Korean state in 1948 and aided it during and after the Korean War. After the Soviet Union’s implosion, China took on North Korea’s life support by supplying the isolated, sanctioned Kim regime with essential food and fuel.
Now, as his war in Ukraine drags on inconclusively, Mr. Putin is looking for friends and suppliers. He could offer Mr. Kim advanced weaponry and technology to reset the peninsula’s military balance and complete North Korea’s “nuclear triad” deterrent. The Kremlin could also slash Mr. Kim’s uncomfortable food and fuel reliance on Beijing.
Mr. Putin could gain masses of North Korean tactical ammunition and cheap, disciplined labor to work on reconstruction in occupied territories.
With a single trip in less than a week, the isolated Mr. Kim also showed Russians that they have friends capable of standing up to Washington.
For outsiders, it is unclear whether the visit represents a dangerously rejuvenated relationship or is simply political theater. Regardless, the early reviews from Seoul and Washington are downbeat at best.
Packed agenda
A fawning Russian state media showed the visitor, dubbed “Comrade Kim,” hobnobbing with Mr. Putin and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. Mr. Kim was seen avidly touring the Vostochny satellite launch complex and a factory producing SU-35 and SU-57 warplanes. He visited an airfield where nuclear-capable Tu-160, Tu-95 and Tu-22M3 bombers are stationed and was shown a Russian MiG-31, a supersonic interceptor that can carry hypersonic missiles.
In Vladivostok, he boarded a frigate of the Pacific Fleet and was shown missile launch controls. He visited a food factory, met North Korean technical students and found time to watch a ballet and visit an aquarium.
Russian news outlets reported that Mr. Kim left the country aboard his armored train with promises of new drones, next-generation military uniforms — reportedly invisible to thermal imaging — and possibly a new Russian limo. Mr. Putin and Mr. Kim exchanged matching gifts: a pair of rifles.
Even a scene of Mr. Kim’s bodyguards carefully sanitizing his seat before his sit-down with Mr. Putin was followed with fascination. State TV talk shows, translated by YouTube channel Russian Media Monitor, had discussants gleefully toting up the summit’s headaches for the Biden administration.
North Korea has “a colossal arsenal and we very much need those shells at the front, even despite our own production,” said panelist Gevorg Mirzayan, a research fellow at Russia’s U.S. and Canadian Studies Institute. “Of course, some are expired, but it does not mean it could not be launched.”
Mr. Mirzayan said Mr. Putin’s hints that he might offer Mr. Kim space technologies were “Level-80 trolling.” Others said technology transfers were feasible.
The North Koreans “are quite successful building their submarines. They just need to make them nuclear-powered,” political scientist Sergey Mikheyev said on one of the most popular Russian TV talk shows. “Theoretically, we can help them with this.”
Mr. Mikheyev applauded Pyongyang’s resistance to pressure from the U.S. and its allies.
“A low living standard is North Korea’s weakness but also its strength,” he said. The U.S. “can’t do anything to these people.”
Some overseas analysts questioned the likely extent of the arms trades, given both nations’ domestic security demands.
“North Korea is going to help Russia but has to maintain its own security concerns on the peninsula,” said Alex Neill, a security expert at the Pacific Forum. “Can North Korea really put that on the table? Or is this just international theater designed to appeal to anti-U.S. sentiments?”
Chun In-bum, a retired South Korean general, said Pyongyang’s arms complex should not be underestimated.
“They have 2 million workers hard at work making munitions and all that good stuff,” he said.
Rising fears
If Moscow offers advanced aircraft, as Mr. Kim’s itinerary and some Seoul pundits suggest, then Pyongyang could complete its “nuclear triad.” The launch systems on land, at sea and in the air are designed to frustrate any combatant’s effort to disable the North’s nuclear arsenal.
Not everyone agrees. “I don’t think North Korea would want the triad: ground-launched and sea-launched are good enough for their purposes,” Mr. Chun said.
Russian supply of cutting edge kit could overturn long-held strategic assumptions that North Korea boasts mass and atomic arms but prosperous South Korea wields high technologies.
“There is a list of things that might fall into the hands of the North Koreans,” he said. “Those are really advanced technologies that could tip the military balance on the Korean Peninsula.”
North Korea and Russia share a land border, making covert transfers relatively easy. Technical blueprints can be dispatched online, and missile components can be moved at a lower visibility than finished products.
“There is huge asymmetry in the wish lists, so a lot of people say this is not going to happen or is just a fantasy, but we have to look at the intangibles and abstracts,” said Daniel Pinkston, an international relations expert at Troy University.
Some cooperative modes would not even be sanctioned.
“They can do stuff like technical training and training pilots,” he said. “Russia could give them jet fuel for that training, which would not be sanctioned as it is inside their country.”
The visit was a jolt for the Biden administration, which has been rudely rebuffed by the Kim regime after offers to resume direct talks.
Independent experts have warned for decades that Washington’s goal — North Korean denuclearization — was unrealistic given the security needs and paranoia of the North Korean leadership. Pyongyang, they said, would never melt its “sacred sword” of atomic weapons.
Since the advent of the Ukraine war, China and Russia have blocked U.S. attempts to add sanctions through the U.N. Security Council, further eroding the council’s effectiveness. With Russia seeming ready to break several taboos by dealing with Mr. Kim, U.S. diplomats might have to reconsider the power dynamics in the region.
“This could prompt the most profound rethink of the U.S. approach toward North Korea in decades,” Ankit Panda, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment, wrote in Foreign Policy.
• Andrew Salmon can be reached at asalmon@washingtontimes.com.
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