Putin and Kim meet for a weapons deal: the new dictator alliance is so dangerous

Above all, Russia needs artillery and ammunition. And North Korea can help with this, as North Korea expert Hanns-Günther Hilpert of the Science and Politics Foundation explains to Blick. “North Korea can supply artillery ammunition of various types, for guns and for rocket launchers.”

According to Rüdiger Frank, North Korea expert at the University of Vienna, there are many signals that North Korea wants to sell weapons. “North Korea’s many weapons tests since 2022, including drone demonstrations, were very much like a sales show.”

The North Korean military is the fourth largest in the world and has nearly 1.3 million active-duty soldiers, which is about 5 percent of the total population. More than 600,000 others serve as reserve soldiers. According to Hilpert, North Korea is still a clumsy state when it comes to conventional forces: “The soldiers are malnourished and poorly trained.”

North Korea’s true strength, however, lies in its weapons of mass destruction. “We underestimate North Korea in terms of weapons of mass destruction and overestimate North Korea in terms of conventional capabilities,” Hilpert emphasizes. Here, North Korea is clearly an arms power. Russia’s other military ally, Iran, can’t keep up either.

Kim established North Korea’s nuclear program as his grandfather’s and father’s most important legacy. North Korea has 30 nuclear weapons and many other ballistic missiles, according to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.

According to the two experts, the question is whether North Korea can supply all this material at all. In fact, according to Hilpert, North Korea already needs its own weapons: ‘As a deterrent to the US and South Korea.’ Frank also says, “North Korea is always ready for war and will not evacuate its own camps.”

He explains: “In addition, there is the transport problem. After all, North Korea is 9,000 kilometers from the front in Ukraine.” The only option: «Delivering smaller quantities of regular ammunition by rail or of special weapons such as drones. North Korea will certainly be able to contribute, even if it cannot be decisive.”

No war material may be supplied to North Korea, nor may war material be imported from North Korea. The country’s wish list for Russia is correspondingly long: oil, fertilizer, food – and technologies for weapons of mass destruction. Kim could demand all this from Putin. And the Kremlin boss is likely to make his mark.

The catch, according to Hilpert, is: “Everything that happens between the two countries is a violation of any security resolution.” North Korea is the most sanctioned country in the world after Russia, Iran and Syria. “Connecting yourself to a state that tramples on human rights is another lineage of Russia.”

“With Russia as a partner, North Korea would be safe, could develop economically and militarily, and would be more calm under pressure from the United States,” said Frank. Hilpert adds: “This meeting in Vladivostok is of course a humiliation for Russia. Now they are aligned with North Korea.”

And: The fact that the great Goliath Russia has to ask the little David North Korea for support can only be seen as a further humiliation of Putin.