Russian President Vladimir Putin flew into Pyongyang for a rare Summit meeting and was warmly received in person by Kim Jong Un with hugs and smiles. Un has announced that their relations “have been elevated to the new higher level of an alliance” and Putin responded that the partnership “provides, among other things, for mutual assistance in the event of aggression against one of the parties to this agreement.”

By all accounts, United States and its allies, particularly North Korea’s neighbours, are visibly rattled by President Putin’s visit to North Korea. In Washington, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Russia was trying “in desperation, to develop and to strengthen relations with countries that can provide it with what it needs to continue the war of aggression that it started against Ukraine.”

In Tokyo, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi appeared nervous about the strengthened military partnership between Russia and North Korea and expressed concerns over the “increasingly severe,” security environment surrounding Japan; and a Japanese government official expressed apprehension that “Russia’s technical cooperation could accelerate North Korea’s nuclear and missile development,”

Meanwhile, in Seoul, the office of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol condemned the visit and a statement called it a threat to the country’s security and a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions. The Foreign Ministry spokesperson “express[ed] grave concern over Russia and North Korea signing the comprehensive strategic partnership pact and openly commenting on military technology cooperation” and his country would “take stern actions correspondingly, against any threat to our national security, together with the international community including our allies and friendly nations."

The NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told a joint press conference that China, North Korea and Iran were supporting Russia with military hardware and "this has regional and global security consequences,"

However, in Beijing there was a muted response to the Russia-North Korea summit; the Chinese Foreign ministry dismissed it as “bilateral matter”. But the amenability between Putin and Un i.e. Un’s reference to Russia as North Korea’s ‘most honest friend’ must be lurking in the mind of the Chinese. Thoughts that Beijing is losing out on North Korea and its foreign policy to Russia must also be worrying Beijing.

The Russian government has not yet put out the statement on the Summit meeting, but Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, during his media interaction on the issue, stated that “in the event of aggression against one of the parties, the second party will provide it with all necessary assistance in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter and the national legislation of Russia and the DPRK” and “it is a purely defensive position”. The North Korean side text of the agreement notes that under Article 4, “if one of the countries gets invaded and is pushed into a state of war, the other must deploy “all means at its disposal without delay” to provide “military and other assistance.”

The above Russian assurances have surely emboldened North Korea against US led challenge and caused discomfort in Tokyo as well as Seoul. Furthermore, Putin’s statement “The Russian Federation does not exclude the development of military-technical cooperation with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in accordance with the document signed today,” in a way validates the perception that the cooperation would include North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile program.

In the context of the latter, North Korea has supplied to Russia the short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) KN-23 (430 miles range). These are being used by Russia in the war against Ukraine and have been assessed as of “very low" quality and abysmally poor accuracy. According to Ukraine's top prosecutor “about half of the North Korean missiles lost their programmed trajectories and exploded in the air”. Apparently, North Korea is receiving data from Russia to improve its overall performance particularly in terms of its precision and ability to avoid detection. This should help Pyongyang to improve its arsenal and build more sophisticated ‘fail proof and accurate’ missiles.

Also associated with the missile programme is bilateral space cooperation. Although it is not known if the two leaders discussed the space cooperation which was on the agenda during their last meeting in September 2023, but this programme will sure get a boost.

It appears that the newfound bonhomie between Russia and North Korea is an outcome of the Russia-Ukraine war. But for Putin and Un, it is a new relationship to challenge the global hegemony and domination of the US led West.

Dr. Vijay Sakhuja is Professor and Head, Center of Excellence for Geopolitics and International Studies (CEGIS), REVA University, Bengaluru, and is associated with Kalinga International Foundation, New Delhi.