SEOUL, South Korea — North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow this week, signaling the deepening cooperation between the two U.S. adversaries as Russia’s war in Ukraine approaches its second anniversary next month.
Bilateral initiatives are expected to include expanded military cooperation and a symbolic visit by Mr. Putin to North Korea. Analysts say Moscow might be seeking a warm-water port on the northeastern coast of the Korean Peninsula for Russian shipping.
Mr. Putin greeted Ms. Choe at the Kremlin on Tuesday during her three-day trip to Russia, Moscow’s official Tass news agency reported. Earlier in the day, she met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who joined her talks with the Russian president.
Mr. Lavrov said he appreciated Pyongyang’s support for Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine, according to Tass.
Russia, engaged in firepower-heavy combat in Ukraine, needs munitions to replenish its weapons stocks. The Biden administration has accused the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un of supplying container loads of artillery ammunition to Russia and offering ballistic missiles, which have been identified on the battlefield.
Mr. Lavrov said Russia and North Korea would continue their “productive cooperation” in the United Nations and other multilateral organizations.
In an apparently unrelated move on Wednesday, U.S., South Korean and Japanese vessels conducted perhaps their biggest-ever combined naval exercises in a show of strength, the South Korean military said. The Associated Press reported that senior diplomats from the three allies were to meet in Seoul to discuss the growing danger from Pyongyang.
The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said the exercises involved an American aircraft carrier in waters off South Korea’s Jeju Island. The training was designed to sharpen the allies’ deterrence and response capabilities against North Korean nuclear, missile and underwater threats and practice prevention of illicit maritime shipments of weapons of mass destruction, AP reported.
Since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war, U.N. Security Council permanent members China and Russia have dropped their criticisms of North Korea for its sanctions-breaching missile and satellite launches. They have also opposed further sanctions on Pyongyang, frustrating the United States and its allies.
The meeting in the Kremlin on Tuesday also covered the implementation of agreements reached during Mr. Putin and Mr. Kim’s summit in September at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Russian Far East.
Lengthy agenda
The content of those agreements has not been made public, but Moscow and Pyongyang, both heavily sanctioned by the U.S. and other Western powers, have much to discuss.
North Korea appears to view the Russia-Ukraine war as an opportunity to ease its global isolation and build ties with its powerful neighbor. The two countries share a short border, and their economies are roughly complementary.
North Korea’s official KCNA news wire offered few details of the talks in its account of the Choe-Putin meeting. It said both sides affirmed the desire to “promote the dynamic development of the overall bilateral relations.” The talks “proceeded in an amicable atmosphere overflowing with feelings of friendship,” KCNA reported.
North Korea maintains massive stockpiles of Warsaw Pact standard ammunition and is a significant missile producer. On Sunday, it test-fired what it claimed was a highly advanced solid-fuel hypersonic ballistic missile.
Solid propellant makes a missile quicker to fuel and, therefore, harder to destroy on its launchpad. Hypersonic speed and variable glide paths make the warhead difficult to shoot down.
North Korea lacks arable land and, beyond domestically mined coal, native energy sources.
Russia possesses plentiful military and missile technologies. South Korean analysts say Russian technical aid enabled North Korea’s successful launch of its first spy satellite in November. Russia is also a huge producer of grain and petroleum.
Mr. Kim has focused on projecting a powerful image domestically and internationally. The highest priority may be a visit from the Russian president.
“Other issues are transfers of technology and some critical components for missiles, but I think the main aim is getting Putin,” said Go Myong-hyun, a research fellow at Seoul’s Asan Institute for Policy Studies.
“They don’t care about food aid and medical aid,” he said of Pyongyang’s elite. The prestige of a Putin visit “is the main thing.”
Another factor might be Russia’s main Far Eastern port of Vladivostok, which requires ice breakers and thermal plants during the region’s freezing winters.
The underused North Korean Rajin Port in the northeast, which has good ground links to nearby borders with Russia and China, is not prone to icing. China’s nearest ports are in the distant Yellow Sea, on the opposite side of the Korean Peninsula.
“Maybe Russia can offer some logistics aid to North Korea,” said Oleg Kiriyanov, a Russian specialist on North Korea who heads the Asia Risk Research Center. “We need some additional port that is not frozen, without ice, where we can export Russian commodities to, for example, China.”
While North Korea and Russia are moving closer together, China is keeping its distance. It has become deeply embedded in regional supply chains and relies heavily on global trade for its economy.
“I think in this so-called new cold war, the Chinese are not as hot as the North Koreans think,” said Mr. Go. “We are less sure about Russia — about whether this is the beginning of a long relationship or a temporary transactional hookup.”
• Andrew Salmon can be reached at asalmon@washingtontimes.com.
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