Russia’s war against Ukraine handed the DPRK a unique opportunity to bind Moscow to itself. Under Boris Yeltsin and even in the early years of Vladimir Putin’s rule, relations between Moscow and Pyongyang were far from smooth. The Kremlin would periodically recall the old friendship, yet large-scale joint projects were simply out of the question—they were seen as far too toxic. Russia played the role of a bridge between the international community, alarmed by the Kim regime’s antics, and the regime itself. It did so not as an advocate, but rather as a “good cop” who was perfectly capable of presenting its own demands.
With the launch of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the old constraints disappeared. Russian oil began reaching the world market in much the same way as North Korean oil—via the shadow fleet. And the front very quickly needed large consignments of shells, which the DPRK had in abundance: the country had spent its entire history preparing for a major war.
Two worlds, two visits
The modern history of Russian-DPRK relations is well illustrated by the contrast between Vladimir Putin’s two visits to Pyongyang. The first took place in July 2000, when a still-young and, in places, pro-Western Russian president arrived in North Korea with an ambitious mission: to persuade the then-leader Kim Jong-il to abandon the country’s missile program.
Success would have allowed Moscow to achieve several important objectives at once. First, it would have established itself as an effective negotiator capable of achieving what the West could not. Second, it would have persuaded then-US President Bill Clinton to abandon the deployment of missile-defense systems in Alaska. The American administration at the time claimed these systems were needed primarily to counter the threat from North Korea and countries in the Middle East (clearly meaning Iran and Iraq).
Putin hoped to demonstrate to Washington that the North Korean threat did not exist, and that therefore the deployment of BMD systems near Chukotka was unnecessary. After talking with Kim Jong-il, the Russian president emerged before journalists with a sensational statement: “A thesis was voiced […] according to which North Korea is prepared to use exclusively the rocket technology of other states, if they provide such an opportunity, for the peaceful exploration of space.” Putin emphasized that “such a statement had been made by the leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea for the first time.”
Shortly after the visit to Pyongyang, Putin travelled to the G8 summit in Okinawa, where he spoke with no little pride of his diplomatic success. The joy proved short-lived. At the time, inter-Korean relations were experiencing an unprecedented thaw. On 12 August a delegation of 56 South Korean media editors arrived in Pyongyang and was received personally by Kim Jong-il. He told them he had promised Putin nothing of the sort. The remark, he claimed, had been made only “in passing, as a joke.”
Thus the young Russian president missed the chance to become an envoy of global peace—the man who had personally helped limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons beyond the framework of international treaties. Freezing the American missile-defense program also proved temporary: the new US president, George W. Bush, embraced it with enthusiasm.
Putin’s next visit to the DPRK took place in 2024—after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine—and unfolded in an entirely different manner. Now Moscow and Pyongyang found themselves in the same boat: sanctioned pariah states jointly confronting the “Western hegemon.” As noted in the Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership that replaced the outdated 2000 agreement, “if either party is subjected to armed attack by any state or several states and thus finds itself in a state of war, the other party shall immediately provide military and other assistance.”
At that point Putin was still insisting that there was no question of using North Korean soldiers against Ukraine: “We are not asking anyone for this, no one has offered it to us, so there is no need.” At the same time, Russian media reported that after the treaty-signing ceremony Putin had drawn attention to Western plans to supply Ukraine with F-16 fighters and other high-tech weapons for strikes on Russia, and had not ruled out the development of military-technical cooperation with the DPRK in that event. This, in turn, could not fail to cause concern in South Korea, which began to reconsider the question of direct lethal-arms deliveries to Ukraine.
From approval to complicity
After the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Pyongyang was among the first to openly support Moscow. On 2 March 2022 the DPRK voted against the UN General Assembly resolution condemning Russia’s actions. The only other “no” votes came from Russia itself, Belarus, Eritrea and Syria. In July of the same year North Korea became the second country (after Syria) to recognize the “independence” of the DPR and LPR.
At the time such gestures were largely perceived as symbolic. “The war with Ukraine has created a situation in which North Korea can easily give Russia diplomatic gifts in the expectation of reciprocity,” noted one of the leading Russian-speaking Korea specialists, Andrei Lankov. “Pyongyang is ready to become one of those voices, especially since it costs it nothing.” Lankov also stressed that “in Pyongyang they are generally pleased with what is happening in the world.” The pleasure was understandable: Russia’s rupture with the West had placed it in the same category as the DPRK, and Moscow (even cut off from Western markets) remained a highly valuable ally in resource terms.
Another important detail was recorded by another well-known Russian Korea specialist, Konstantin Asmolov, who has traditionally taken a more benevolent view of Pyongyang and publishes in pro-government Russian media. In an article entitled “How Pyongyang Opened the Door to a New World Order” he wrote: “In 2022 the DPRK officially announced the testing of an ICBM, and the moratorium officially ceased to exist.”
Since April 2018—during preparations for the meeting between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un in Singapore (which took place on 12 June)—Pyongyang had officially declared a halt to nuclear-weapon and intercontinental ballistic-missile tests. The moratorium was formally observed: only shorter-range systems continued to be launched. Yet already on 30 January 2022, when the full-scale invasion of Ukraine was still being prepared, the DPRK launched its largest rocket in the previous five years. It was a medium-range missile, not yet intercontinental. Nevertheless, Seoul and Tokyo had every reason to fear that the moratorium was about to be broken.
And so it was. Already in March, after the start of Russian aggression, Pyongyang launched the Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile, and in May three more rockets, one of which experts assessed as intercontinental. The United States attempted to tighten UN sanctions against the DPRK, but Russia and China vetoed the relevant resolution. Moscow thereby effectively embarked on the path of open endorsement of the North Korean missile program.
Trade turnover between Russia and the DPRK did begin to grow after the war started, yet not as rapidly as, for example, with Turkey or China. In 2022 it amounted to a mere $ 3.78 million. This was largely due to the consequences of the pandemic: North Korea returned to its customary rhythm of foreign economic ties extremely slowly. That low base, however, allowed for an impressive almost ninefold increase in 2023, to $ 34.4 million. In 2024 the figure remained at the same level—around $ 34 million. Official data for 2025 have not been published; it is known only that new commodity categories appeared—beer, cigarettes and rapeseed oil. Even in Moscow it was acknowledged that alongside consumer goods “the second major block is hydrocarbons,” i.e. fuel.
It was in 2024 that Russia and the DPRK actively expanded logistical capacity for trade. To the familiar Hasan-Rason railway line (in 2021 Russian diplomats and their families had been forced to travel along it on a handcar—there was simply no other way out of the DPRK at the time) was added the construction of a road bridge at Hasan-Tumangang across the border river Tumen (construction was recently completed successfully). In 2024 the DPRK for the first time since the pandemic opened its territory to Russian tourists.
But the most significant news that year was the opening of the Nakhodka-Rason sea line. Moscow spoke of it openly, even though in reality it constituted a clear violation of the UN Security Council sanctions imposed in 2017. Those sanctions prohibited the DPRK from receiving more than 525,000 tons, or 4 million barrels, of oil per year. Yet according to a joint investigation by iStories and the Open Source Center, in 2024 at least 50 tankers shuttled between Russia and the DPRK, delivering approximately 1.3 million barrels of oil—clearly exceeding the established limit. Britain immediately took note: already in May 2024 it imposed sanctions on the Fuel Bunker Company (TBK) that services the terminal in Nakhodka.
A special panel of experts under the UN Security Council had monitored compliance with sanctions against the DPRK; its mandate was renewed annually. In 2024 Russia vetoed its extension, calling the previous sanctions regime “divorced from reality.” China—Pyongyang’s main economic partner—abstained.
The principal dimension of Russian-DPRK cooperation after 2022 became the military-technical sphere. The bulk of deliveries occurred in 2023—after the visit to Pyongyang by then-Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu. He was received personally by Kim Jong-un, yet the substantive conversation was apparently conducted by DPRK Defence Minister Kang Sun-nam. Clearly the discussion concerned new purchases of North Korean shells by the Russian army. Deliveries of North Korean weaponry to Russia in 2024 became the basis for American sanctions against related individuals and companies. In spring 2024 UN experts confirmed that the Russian army had struck Kharkiv with a North Korean Hwasong-11 missile.
The question of what the DPRK would receive in return—apart from Russian goods and oil—remained open. In September of the same year Kim Jong-un arrived at Russia’s Vostochny Cosmodrome, where Vladimir Putin was waiting for him. The visit once again confirmed that Russia was now an ally of the DPRK in the development of its missile program, rather than part of the global system that sought to constrain it.
In combat and afterwards
Almost no one believed in the most radical scenario—the direct participation of North Korean troops in Russia’s war against Ukraine. This was partly due to Pyongyang’s own position. Throughout its existence the Kim regime has sought to keep North Korean citizens inside an information bubble. A large-scale deployment of soldiers to war could seriously distort their perception of reality. Even in front-line towns and villages where troops are stationed, living standards are often higher than in the North Korean hinterland: there are shops, and every house has a television, a refrigerator and a computer with internet access.
“First, purely technical problems will arise with logistics and the availability of military interpreters. Second, it is a reputational blow to the Kremlin. Can Russia really not cope with Ukraine without North Korea’s help?” wrote even the restrained expert Konstantin Asmolov. “And third, as soon as we have this kind of foreign specialist, it will open the door to analogous actions by the West.”
Nevertheless, it happened—under conditions of secrecy and only on internationally recognized Russian territory, in Kursk Oblast, into which Ukrainian forces had entered. First there appeared video of DPRK soldiers training at ranges in the Far East, then Ukrainian intelligence reports of enemy groups behaving quite differently from Russian units. And finally, prisoners who spoke Korean.
Putin himself, already in October 2024, at least did not deny the presence of foreign troops in Kursk Oblast. But official confirmation of North Korean participation in the war appeared only in April 2025. Simultaneously the Defence Ministry began releasing clearly staged videos featuring them. The acknowledgement was clearly timed for 9 May 2025, so that North Korean generals could attend the parade as genuine brothers-in-arms.
Military-technical cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang continued after the Kursk operation. Notably, the key negotiator on the Kremlin side remained Sergei Shoigu—no longer defense minister but secretary of the Security Council. He flew to the DPRK three times in 2025: in March and twice in June; in May he met in Moscow with DPRK Minister of State Security Ri Chang-dae. The density of such contacts has been maintained. In April 2026 Pyongyang was also visited by State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin.
In July 2025 Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov arrived in the DPRK on a visit, and a year later—in July 2026—a reciprocal visit to Moscow was paid by DPRK Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui. In the first case the discussion concerned attracting Russian tourists to the recently opened North Korean resort of Wonsan; in the second, more global issues. “Pyongyang’s full support for the domestic and foreign policy of the Russian Federation is unshakeable,” declared Choe Son-hui. She made clear that the DPRK and Russia share a common enemy—the United States. This formed the ideological justification for military participation: in this way, Pyongyang claimed, it was defending its own sovereignty.
Virtually every step taken by the DPRK towards closer ties with Russia against the backdrop of its aggression against Ukraine can be explained by precisely this. Setting aside the details of Moscow’s evident desire to return to “pragmatic cooperation” with the Western world and especially with the United States, Pyongyang skilfully exploited Moscow’s isolation to improve its own position—both economically and militarily. The restoration of the flow of Russian tourists, as well as supplies of goods and oil from Russia, became a serious support after the pandemic, while the experience of modern warfare gained in Kursk Oblast became a strong argument in dialogue with Seoul.
According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Pyongyang is already preparing a new, more large-scale participation of its soldiers in the war. These words are corroborated by Reuters: the agency reported the transfer of North Korean missile units to Voronezh Oblast, which would allow the North Koreans to adhere to their previous tactic of participating in the war without crossing Russia’s borders.
