Troy Stangarone

The Trump administration is pushing to end the war in Ukraine. If successful, the conclusion of the more than three-year-old conflict will have implications for security in Europe, but also the future of what has become an increasingly close relationship between Russia and North Korea. While some have long seen the ties between Moscow and Pyongyang as primarily a transactional relationship, there are good reasons to believe that it is a partnership that will persist beyond the Ukraine war.

Growing ties between Russia and North Korea were perhaps inevitable. Once it was clear that Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” would not be a short endeavor, Russia needed to find a means to acquire increasingly large amounts of military hardware to maintain an advantage over Ukraine. With Russia and North Korea already facing international sanctions, there was little downside for either country. Cooperation allowed Russia to gain access to artillery and other weapons to conduct its invasion, while North Korea was given a path to breaking out of the sanctions regime that constrained it.

Russia also had limited options outside of North Korea. While India was willing to buy Russian oil at a discount, it is dependent on Russia for its own weapons. Iran has been an important supplier of drones, but it also faced limits on what it could........

© The Korea Times