Russia’s friendship with North Korea may have backfired

• South Korea says North Korean troops are being trained by Russia to fight in Ukraine.
• The Kremlin said the cooperation between the two was “within the framework of international law.”
• Russia is worried that South Korea will send weapons to help Ukraine, according to a US think tank.

The Kremlin’s alliance with North Korea may have bolstered its campaign in Ukraine, but it’s come at a potentially serious cost.

South Korea’s government this week signaled its fury over the growing alliance between the two countries.

In a meeting with Russia ambassador Georgiy Zinoviev, South Korea demanded the withdrawal of North Korean soldiers which it said were being trained by Russia to fight in Ukraine.

Yoon Suk Yeol, a senior official at the office of South Korea’s president, said on Tuesday that South Korea is now mulling sending weapons to help Ukrainian troops.

In response, the Kremlin seemed eager to reassure South Korea. Zinoviev said the alliance between Russia and North Korea was “within the framework of international law.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the North Korea-Russia alliance “should not worry anyone.” He also dismissed reports of the troop deployment as “contradictory.”

Earlier that day South Korea had placed pressure on the Kremlin, releasing satellite images that it said showed 1,500 North Korean military personnel being sent to Russia.

Analysts at the Insitute for the Study of War, a US think tank, said that the Kremlin appears worried about the backlash from Seoul.

“The Kremlin’s apparent desire to assure South Korea that its cooperation with North Korea is not a threat to Seoul suggests that the Kremlin remains very concerned about the prospect of Seoul’s potential pivot towards providing Ukraine with necessary military support, and the implications of worsened relations with Seoul for Russian security interests in the Asia Pacific region,” its analysts wrote on Monday.

Russia’s dangerous new alliance

For decades, South Korea has been in an uneasy standoff with its isolated and authoritarian neighbor, North Korea.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has repeatedly menaced the South with the prospect of attack, while Seoul and its ally, the US, have sought to isolate North Korea and stymie its nuclear weapons program.

But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shaken the precarious balance of power in East Asia.

Russia formed a new military alliance with North Korea to secure badly needed ammunition from North Korean stockpiles for its faltering campaign in Ukraine.

South Korea is increasingly concerned about the technological capabilities and security guarantees North Korea has likely gained from Russia in return.

Russia, previously a backer of sanctions designed to curtail North Korea’s nuclear program, is now helping North Korea evade them.

Analysts from Bloomberg said in June a war on the Korean peninsula could result in the loss of millions of human lives, and cost the global economy around $4 trillion.

South Korea is a semiconductor and electronics manufacturing hub, meaning a disruption to its economy could have massive knock-on global effects.

“The Ukraine war and its spillover to the Korean peninsula are taking a hard toll on the Seoul-Moscow relationship,” wrote analyst Ellen Kim of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in February.

Noting that “several factors could push the ROK-Russia [South Korea-Russia] relations off the cliff.”

South Korea says it could arm Ukraine

In response to Russia’s strengthened relationship with North Korea, South Korea is threatening to arm Ukraine in its battle against the Russian invasion.

Russia’s new defense treaty with North Korea in June seemed to mark a tipping point, with South Korea saying that it could overturn its long-standing ban on sending military assistance to countries at war to help Ukraine.

It’s a threat South Korea reiterated Tuesday, as officials from South Korea’s National Security Council warned that the dispatch of North Korean troops to Russia was a “grave security threat.”

It’s a worrying prospect for Russia, with South Korea holding vast stockpiles of weapons that could help tip the war in Kyiv’s favor.

South Korea has large numbers of 155-millimeter artillery shells, a weapon Ukraine has been desperately short of and that its Western allies have struggled to produce in sufficient quantities.

The New York Times in 2023 reported that President Joe Biden has pressured South Korea to help it arm Ukraine with desperately needed shells, but South Korea had at that point hesistated.

But in response to the latest escalation in North Korea’s collaboration with Russia, South Korea again hinted that nothing was off the table as it weighed how to respond.

South Korea’s First Vice Foreign Minister Kim Hong Kyun said in a statement Monday that the country would respond with “all available means in cooperation with the international community to any acts that threaten the core interests of South Korea.”