North Korea’s top diplomat met with Russian President Vladimir Putin this week, hailing the “spiritual closeness” of the two countries and committing to deepen bilateral ties.
Details of North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui’s meetings with Putin and her Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, were predictably sparse, but Putin said that “everything was going to plan” in the relationship.
Pyongyang has dispatched an estimated 10,000 soldiers to Russia to fight against Ukrainian forces, in exchange for economic and technological support.
States such as North Korea, China, and Iran continue to prop up Russia to varying degrees. Three leaders from this so-called “axis of upheaval” — Chinese President Xi Jinping, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, and Putin — met in Beijing last month for a Chinese military parade.
Russians appear to appreciate Beijing’s support of Moscow since 2022: a Gallup poll published Monday suggests 69 per cent of Russians approve of China’s leadership, up from 36 per cent in 2019.
The relationship now is a far cry from the bilateral turmoil of the Cold War, which featured a prolonged ‘Sino-Soviet split’ triggered by the countries’ divergent interpretations of Marxism.
