SEOUL, South Korea — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s highly anticipated summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang Wednesday was heavy on optics, light on substance.
Experts see the bilateral relationship – rejuvenated following Russia’s 2022 invasion Ukraine, which has pushed Russia deep into the sanctioned, isolated economic terrain North Korea has long occupied — as rife with transactional opportunities.
Questions linger, however, over its ideological sustainability.
Mr. Putin’s late arrival — in the early hours of Wednesday morning, rather than on Tuesday, as planned — looks like an assertion of primacy over his host. That may have been aimed at his domestic audience, as Mr. Kim leads a country that Moscow has been forced to turn to for ammunition, but which Soviets and Russians customarily looked down upon for its oddness and backwardness.
In Pyongyang, the two leaders signed a “comprehensive strategic partnership” but did not release any details. Russian media discussed it only in broad generalities with references to past relations. Mr Putin, however, noted that it includes a “provision of mutual” assistance clause in the case of armed conflict.
Regardless of any jockeying for “face” and the content of strategic discussions, Russian and North Korean media were alive with good vibes as the two leaders interacted.
Rude signal, good vibes
Mr. Putin is notorious on the international scene for turning up late for meetings with fellow heads of state heads — a habit he indulged Wednesday.
Footage from the early hours of Wednesday showed Mr. Kim waddling with apparent impatience on the tarmac of Pyongyang’s floodlit Sunan airport as he and an honor guard awaited Mr. Putin’s arrival and flunkies unrolled a broad red carpet.
After Putin’s aircraft landed and he disembarked, there were cheek kisses and some good-natured “After you” – “No, after you” gesturing as the two leaders entered a waiting Russian-made limousine. They then drove off, escorted by a huge motorcade.
In daylight on a fine, early summer day in Pyongyang, flag-waving crowds lined streets as the two leaders rolled by, standing side by side in an open-topped limo.
Military bands played Russian airs as civilians danced in the capital’s landmark Kim Il-sung square — named after Mr. Kim’s grandfather, and constructed after the Korean War from the bulldozed rubble of the capital.
Mr. Putin was filmed introducing Mr. Kim to his entourage, which included Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov and new Defense Minister Andrey Belousov.
The two leaders held two hours of discussions, after which the new partnership was announced.
According to global media, Mr. Putin said, “The comprehensive partnership agreement signed today includes, among other things, the provision of mutual assistance in the event of aggression against one of the parties to this agreement.”
Whether that means a new alliance, or simply the provision of military support – which Russia extended to North Korea during the Korean War, in the form of planning and air defense, and which North Korea has extended to Russia in terms of artillery supply in Ukraine — is not clear.
Per Tass, Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov said it replaces a 1961 treaty of friendship and mutual assistance, a 2000 treaty on bilateral ties and the 2000 and 2001 Moscow and Pyongyang Declarations.
It is needed “because of profound changes in the geopolitical situation in the region and worldwide and in bilateral ties between Russia and North Korea,” Mr. Ushakov said.
Mr. Putin is expected to fly to Vietnam for the second leg of his Asian trip later today.
Who wants what?
The two heads of state likely had much to discuss as their respective requirements are broadly complimentary.
North Korea needs military technologies, grain and oil – three commodities Russia has in abundance.
Russian needs munitions — and North Korea’s military industrial complex is churning out the kind of Warsaw Pact artillery munitions that are proving critical on Ukraine’s shell-cratered battle scapes.
Russia, in demographic decline, may seek North Korean labor to rebuild conquered parts of Ukraine.
On the military front, Russia may want access to the warm-water port of Rason in northeastern North Korea, and could feasibly institute joint military drills in response to the Japan-South Korea-U.S. trilateral partnership emerging in Northeast Asia.
Both sides also benefit from supporting each other in international fora, such as the United Nations.
In a column published in North Korea and Russia on the eve of the visit, Mr. Putin said that the two states should work to build a cooperative, bilateral trade relationship. This could suggest a new managed-trade or barter mechanism, designed to bypass Western-led financial systems.
Transactional partnership or ideological alliance?
What is up for debate is whether the newly dusted-off relationship is merely transactional, or could prove sustainable, long-term.
“That Putin hasn’t visited North Korea in 24 years when it is so close to Vladivostok and the Russian Far East speaks volumes about the real importance of [North Korea] to him outside of its contributions to the war in Ukraine,” wrote Mark Barry, an academic who has followed North Korean developments for over three decades, on X.
Mr. Putin’s lateness also sent a signal.
“North Korea had prepared full-day festivities — this was supposed to be a state visit — and Putin knew it, but intentionally landed in the early hours, which essentially undermined North Korea’s plans to give him the right amount of pomp and circumstance,” said a well-informed South Korea, who spoke to The Washington Times on condition of anonymity. “With Putin downgrading it to more of an official visit than a state visit, and then flying off for Vietnam, North Korea could not make use of this to show that it is a peer power of Russia.”
However, neither Mr. Kim nor Mr. Putin show any sign of reversing policies that have raised international ire — respectively, building an arsenal of nuclear weapons and delivery systems, and invading Ukraine.
And as Mr. Putin joins Mr. Kim behind the firewall of Western sanctions, they share a commitment to challenge the U.S.-led global order.
Daniel Pinkston, an international relations professor with Troy University, said the two share a three-part commitment to challenging international norms adhered to by the U.S. and its global allies and democratic partners.
Theirs is a three-pronged campaign, Mr. Pinkston said.
One is to overturn the concept of peaceful settlement of disputes. “They don’t want those restraints,” he said. “For Kim and Putin, use of force is a legitimate instrument of statecraft to redraw borders.”
The second prong relates to human rights. “They invoke pure sovereignty to maintain political power,” he said. “There is no respect for human rights.”
The third is a rejection of global, rules-based market economics. “They depend on their local fiefdoms, which they control, so they wish to establish alternative payment systems to bypass the dollar and Western financial networks.”
The South Korean source agreed with Mr. Pinkston, stating that the two have much in common, citing Russia’s increasing authoritarianism.
“I think it’s not purely transactional, there’s an ideological component, too: Putin is re-orienting Russia away from the democratic West and toward the authoritarian East,” he said. “But that does not mean he will ally himself with Kim all the way to the bunker!”
• Andrew Salmon can be reached at asalmon@washingtontimes.com.