DECODING: Two Years of the Moscow-Pyongyang Treaty: the Axis of Authoritarians Fueling War in Europe

DECODING: Two Years of the Moscow-Pyongyang Treaty: the Axis of Authoritarians Fueling War in Europe

Introduction: a monstrous alliance celebrated in the West's culpable indifference

June 22, 2026 — a date that should send a chill down every spine

On June 22, 2026, North Korea marked the second anniversary of the mutual defense treaty with Russia, signed with great ceremony in Pyongyang during Vladimir Putin's state visit. Two years. Two years that this agreement has formally bound two of the most brutal regimes on the planet. Two years that this alliance has directly fueled Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine. And two years that far too many Western capitals have looked the other way, absorbed in their own internal contradictions.

Pyongyang used the anniversary to reaffirm, loudly and clearly, its intention to deepen its ties with Moscow. The rhetoric left no room for ambiguity: Kim Jong-un is promising "deeper ties" with Russia across every domain, military included. Meanwhile, his soldiers are fighting — and dying — in Ukraine, in trenches they could never have imagined setting foot in.

The West caught between shock and strategic paralysis

What strikes me is the absence of any proportionate response from our governments to this documented, confirmed reality: North Korean soldiers deployed on the Ukrainian front, serving a power that has attacked a sovereign European state. This is no longer a hypothesis, an allegation, or an "unverified claim." It is an established fact, confirmed by Western, Ukrainian, and South Korean intelligence. And yet the political response remains timid, fragmented, and insufficient.

Seoul, for its part, has opened the door to an unprecedented question: what do you do with North Korean prisoners of war captured in Ukraine? This is a substantial symbolic and diplomatic breach. These men could testify. These men might choose not to return to North Korea. That question — which sounds technical on the surface — is in reality a slow-burning political bomb for Pyongyang.

The June 19, 2024 treaty: anatomy of a pact between predators

What the Russia–North Korea agreement actually says

The treaty signed on June 19, 2024 in Pyongyang is officially titled the "Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty." But behind that cushioned diplomatic language lies a naked reality: a clause of automatic mutual assistance in the event of armed aggression against either party, explicitly modeled on the mechanisms of NATO's Article 5. The message to Washington and Brussels is direct: the authoritarian axis is building its own collective alliance structures.

The agreement also covers economic, technological, and space domains. Russia has shared ballistic technologies with North Korea that have significantly upgraded Pyongyang's capabilities. In return, Kim Jong-un supplied Moscow with millions of 152mm artillery shells and KN-23 ballistic missiles, which have since struck Ukrainian cities. This is not a routine commercial exchange: it is a direct contribution to the destruction of Ukraine.

Two years of arms deliveries: a damning balance sheet

Since the treaty was signed, North Korean arms deliveries to Russia have been massive and well-documented. Estimates vary by source, but the consensus among Western intelligence services points to more than three million shells delivered, in addition to missiles, launchers, and various military equipment. These munitions have allowed the Russian army to sustain a rate of fire that its own arms industry could never have maintained alone.

In exchange, North Korea has received not only military technologies, but also fuel, raw materials, and valuable diplomatic cover at the UN Security Council. Moscow systematically blocks any condemnatory resolution targeting Pyongyang. It is a bargain that betrays humanity — yet a perfectly rational one for two regimes that have no use for international norms.

North Korean soldiers in Ukraine: the reality behind the denials

The confirmation no one wanted to hear

For months, Russian officials denied it. For months, Pyongyang said nothing. And yet reality forced its way through: North Korean soldiers are fighting in Ukraine, primarily in the Kursk region, embedded within Russian army units. American, British, South Korean, and Ukrainian intelligence services all converged on the same conclusion. Bodies, prisoners, intercepted communications — they removed any remaining doubt.

This deployment marks a qualitative rupture in the war. For the first time since the end of the Cold War, soldiers from a third-party state are fighting directly alongside Russia in a conflict on European soil. The international dimension of this Russian war of aggression is no longer a matter of speculation: it is concrete, documented, counted. Estimates point to several thousand soldiers deployed, with regular rotation.

Seoul opens the Pandora's box of North Korean prisoners

Seoul's decision to open the door to handling North Korean prisoners of war captured in Ukraine carries enormous weight. These prisoners find themselves in an extraordinary position: they have seen the world outside North Korea, they have fought in a war whose very existence their families probably know nothing about, and they understand that returning home means, at best, a life under intense surveillance, and at worst, disappearance into a camp.

Ukraine, under South Korean and Western mediation, must treat these prisoners like any other prisoners of war, in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. But their case raises humanitarian and political questions with no precedent: can they seek asylum? Do they have the right to refuse repatriation to North Korea? These questions find no simple answers in existing international law, and Pyongyang is watching this development with anxiety that is not hard to imagine.

Kim Jong-un, the third man of the war in Ukraine

A "destructive" posture: the words that reveal everything

On June 25, 2026, Kim Jong-un called on his armed forces to adopt a military posture that he himself described as "destructive" toward South Korea. This carefully chosen vocabulary is not incidental: it fits into a pattern of deliberate escalation, designed simultaneously to mobilize his domestic base, intimidate Seoul, and signal to Moscow that Pyongyang remains a reliable and combative partner.

This "destructive" posture comes in a context of heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula, exacerbated precisely by the North Korean deployment in Ukraine. Washington and Seoul have intensified their joint military exercises, which has drawn formal protests from Russia — which declares, with remarkable audacity, to be "concerned" about US-South Korean military activities, as if Moscow itself were not sending Korean soldiers to die in Europe.

North Korea as a live testing ground for its own weapons

There is a deep strategic dimension to North Korea's engagement in Ukraine: this conflict serves as a real-world proving ground for Pyongyang's weapons and tactics. North Korean military engineers are watching how their shells perform in combat, how their missiles reach their targets, what technical corrections are needed. It is an extraordinarily valuable feedback loop for an arms program that, until now, could only test its equipment in controlled trial conditions.

This dimension is often underestimated in Western analysis. Kim Jong-un is not simply a passive arms supplier: he is an active investor in a conflict that allows him to refine his military capabilities at no direct risk to his regime. Every shell fired at a Ukrainian city is also, cynically, a performance test for the North Korean defense industry.

Russia and North Korea: the distorted mirror of two ideological failures

Two regimes that recognize themselves in each other

What binds Moscow and Pyongyang at a deep level is not just short-term military interest. It is a shared ideological fate: two authoritarian regimes that have chosen confrontation with the West as the organizing principle of their foreign policy, two systems that keep their populations in fear and ignorance, two states that have placed the military-industrial complex at the center of their economies at the direct expense of their own people.

Putin's Russia has "North Korea-ized" itself at accelerating speed since 2022: the closure of independent media, the criminalization of all dissent, a total war economy, a personality cult around the leader. Conversely, Kim's North Korea has found in this partnership an international legitimacy it had not enjoyed in decades. They feed off each other's radicalism.

What this reveals about the recomposition of the international system

The Moscow-Pyongyang axis cannot be understood in isolation. It is part of a broader geopolitical realignment that includes Tehran and Beijing in different but complementary roles. These four powers — Russia, North Korea, Iran, China — share a common hostility toward the Western liberal international order, even when their interests diverge on other fronts.

What this axis reveals is that the international system as built after 1945, then reinforced after 1991, is under existential pressure. The UN, non-proliferation mechanisms, the rules of international trade, humanitarian conventions — all of it is being actively circumvented, undermined, and ridiculed by regimes that have decided these rules do not apply to them. And they are right, insofar as the costs imposed on them remain insufficient.

Ukraine caught in a vice: between the Russian front and North Korean logistics

The concrete battlefield impact of North Korean munitions

On a purely military level, the North Korean contribution has had tangible, documented effects on the war in Ukraine. The artillery shells delivered by Pyongyang partially offset the shortfalls that Russia's own arms industry could no longer cover on its own. During months of 2024 and 2025, Ukrainian units reported intensified Russian artillery barrages that analysts correlated directly with North Korean deliveries.

North Korean KN-23 ballistic missiles have struck Ukrainian cities, causing civilian casualties and destruction. These missiles, with their distinctive flight trajectory, have posed new challenges to Ukraine's air defense systems. They are not the most precise weapons, but they are effective enough to terrorize populations and destroy civilian infrastructure. That is their primary utility for the Russian military: systematic terror.

The operational challenges posed by North Korean soldiers on the ground

Integrating North Korean soldiers into Russian units has posed considerable logistical and operational challenges for Moscow. Language barriers, differences in military doctrine, tactical interoperability problems have made their deployment less effective than hoped, according to multiple analyses. Nevertheless, their presence has allowed Russia to partially offset its considerable human losses.

For Ukraine, facing North Korean soldiers introduces a new psychological and operational dimension. These soldiers have a tolerance for suffering and a blind obedience shaped by a totalitarian regime that has conditioned them since childhood. They do not give up easily. They do not have the same survival instincts as soldiers raised in a society where human life is valued. This is a chilling reality that Ukrainian commanders must integrate into their tactical doctrine.

The Western response: too little, too late, too divided

Sanctions that do not match the depth of the alliance

The West has responded to the Russia–North Korea alliance by tightening sanctions against Pyongyang. But North Korea has been under one of the strictest sanctions regimes on the planet for decades. Additional sanctions on an already hyper-isolated economy have a marginal effect. The real question is: how do you impose meaningful costs on Russia for turning to partners like North Korea?

The honest answer is that the measures adopted so far remain insufficient. The United States and the European Union have imposed additional sanctions, designated entities involved in weapons transfers, and shared intelligence with Asian allies. All of this is useful, but it does not fundamentally change the equation. Moscow continues receiving North Korean munitions without paying a genuinely deterrent strategic price.

Transatlantic coordination put to the test

Managing the North Korean dimension of the Ukrainian war requires coordination between NATO allies and Asian partners like South Korea, Japan, and Australia. That coordination exists, but it remains largely informal and insufficiently structured. The Ankara summit of July 7–8, 2026 will be an opportunity to formalize this transatlantic-transpacific cooperation further.

But this coordination is complicated by the uncertainty that the Trump administration casts over American commitments. If Washington reduces its support for Ukraine while wavering on its obligations in the Asia-Pacific, the coherence of the Western response will be seriously weakened. Kim Jong-un and Putin are betting precisely on that fragility.

The treaty's anniversary: the signals sent to the international community

A calculated demonstration of authoritarian solidarity

The second-anniversary celebrations were not incidental. They were orchestrated to send several simultaneous messages. To Seoul and Washington: we are together, solid, determined. To Beijing: we exist, we have our own momentum, you cannot ignore us. To Ukraine and the West: you will not win by isolating Russia, because Russia has friends.

This demonstration comes with concrete promises from Pyongyang: "deeper ties" with Moscow across every domain. One can reasonably anticipate further weapons deliveries, a deepening of technological cooperation, and perhaps new troop deployments. The anniversary was not a look backward: it was a roadmap for what comes next.

The implications for regional stability in Northeast Asia

The strengthening of the Russia–North Korea axis has direct implications for stability in Northeast Asia. Seoul finds itself in an uncomfortable position: it supports Ukraine diplomatically and materially, but hesitates to deliver lethal weapons directly, fearing escalation with Pyongyang. That cautious calculation is understandable, but it has limits.

Japan watches with growing anxiety as North Korea's military technological capabilities are boosted by Russian cooperation. Every improvement in North Korean ballistic capabilities represents a direct threat to Japanese territory. Tokyo has drawn practical conclusions by significantly increasing its defense budget, but the fundamental question remains: how do you deter a regime that values the survival of its leader above everything else, including the welfare of its own people?

China: the silent arbiter of the authoritarian axis

Beijing caught between profit and strategic discomfort

China watches the evolution of the Russia–North Korea alliance with a mixture of interest and discomfort. On one hand, anything that weakens the West and divides American attention between Europe and Asia serves Beijing's tactical interests. On the other hand, a militarily stronger Kim Jong-un, less dependent on China, is a complication for Beijing's policy on the Korean Peninsula.

China was traditionally the only actor with real influence over Pyongyang. But the alliance with Moscow now gives North Korea a strategic alternative that mechanically reduces North Korean dependence on Beijing. This is an outcome China did not anticipate and must now manage, without being able to or willing to publicly oppose this dynamic.

The four-way axis: where interests diverge but hostilities converge

The Russia–North Korea–Iran–China axis is not a formal, coherent alliance. These four powers have often divergent interests, internal rivalries, and sometimes difficult shared histories. What unites them is not a common positive vision for the world: it is their shared hostility toward the Western international order and their determination to weaken it, each in its own way and for its own reasons.

This nuance matters for Western policy. The axis must not be treated as a monolithic bloc — that would overestimate its coherence and foreclose opportunities to exploit divisions. But it must not be underestimated either, or counted on to implode from internal contradictions on its own. Vigilance and action remain necessary.

What international law says — and cannot do

A legal framework under severe strain

North Korea's involvement in Ukraine raises complex legal questions. The deployment of North Korean soldiers constitutes a form of direct participation by a third-party state in an international armed conflict — which is, in principle, contrary to international law norms. North Korea cannot "lease" its soldiers to an aggressor without bearing legal responsibility for doing so.

But international law only means something if its enforcement mechanisms function. And Russia holds a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, while North Korea, already under sanctions, can rely on the Russian and Chinese veto to block any additional binding measures. Law without effective enforcement is an invitation to resistance for regimes that fear only force.

Accountability before the International Criminal Court

The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants against Vladimir Putin for war crimes in Ukraine. These warrants carry powerful symbolic weight but face practical limitations in immediate enforcement. No international mechanism currently exists to reach North Korean leaders for their contribution to these crimes.

Yet documenting responsibility is essential for the future. The crimes being committed today — including those enabled by North Korean munitions and soldiers — must be recorded, investigated, and attributed. Judgment may come later. History has demonstrated more than once that perpetrators sometimes face accountability, even decades after the fact. Rigorous documentation today is the justice of tomorrow.

Global public opinion facing the authoritarian axis

How populations in the Global South see it

Perception of the Russia–North Korea alliance in the "Global South" is complex and often very different from the Western view. In many countries across Africa, Latin America, and South Asia, the war in Ukraine is filtered through the lens of other conflicts, other colonial histories, other forms of distrust toward the West. Russia skillfully exploits these alternative narratives to minimize the diplomatic isolation that its aggression should rightfully earn it.

North Korea itself has little impact on global public opinion beyond its own regional sphere. But its role as an arms supplier for a war in Europe creates dangerous precedents: if Pyongyang can supply munitions to Russia without significant consequences, other regional actors may be tempted to fuel other future conflicts using the same model.

The information war over the North Korean dimension

Russia and North Korea waged an active information war to deny, minimize, or normalize their military partnership. Official denials were systematic until the accumulated evidence made further denial impossible. Even then, the rhetoric shifted toward justification: if the West can supply weapons to Ukraine, why should Russia not be able to accept weapons from its partners?

This equivalence is fraudulent — Ukraine is the victim of aggression, not the aggressor — but it finds resonance in certain segments of global public opinion. Countering this disinformation requires not only factual rebuttals, but also a coherent strategic communications effort that the West has not always deployed with the effectiveness this moment demands.

Looking ahead: the scenarios for the next two years

The controlled escalation scenario

The most likely scenario for the next two years remains one of controlled escalation: a gradual deepening of the Russia–North Korea alliance, new weapons deliveries, possibly new troop deployments, but without crossing thresholds that would trigger a qualitatively different Western response. Putin and Kim are both players who advance their pieces but generally avoid the table where they cannot win.

In this scenario, Ukraine continues to face increased front-line pressure sustained by North Korean munitions, while the West works to ramp up its own arms production to compensate. This is a de facto arms race — one that Europe is beginning to catch up on, but which will still take several years to produce its full effect.

The strategic rupture scenario

An alternative scenario, less likely but not negligible, would be a strategic rupture in the Russia–North Korea axis. If the war in Ukraine ended on terms unfavorable to Russia, or if the costs of the partnership became too high for Pyongyang — in terms of tensions with China or risks of Western retaliation — North Korea could recalibrate its position. Kim Jong-un is, above all, a pragmatist: he will not sacrifice himself on the altar of Russo-Korean friendship if it genuinely threatened his regime.

But this scenario depends largely on the decisions the West makes right now. If we impose sufficiently high costs on Russia for its use of Pyongyang's resources, if we demonstrate a resilience that makes Russian victory impossible, then Kim Jong-un's calculus could change. The history of authoritarian alliances is studded with pragmatic reversals when interests commanded it.

What this demands from the West: clarity without complacency

Moving from rhetoric into action

Faced with the Russia–North Korea axis, the West needs fewer declarations and more action. Summits, communiqués, and "expressions of deep concern" have their ritual utility, but they do not slow down weapons deliveries from Pyongyang to Moscow. What might slow them down: additional economic costs imposed on Russia, increased military aid to Ukraine that makes the cost of war unbearable for Moscow, and resolute support for Seoul and Tokyo in their own security challenges.

The NATO Ankara summit of July 7–8, 2026 is an opportunity. Not the last, not the only one, but an opportunity. The decision to increase defense spending to 5% of GDP, if genuinely implemented, will shift the balance of power over the medium term. But summit decisions must be followed by real budgets, signed contracts, and delivered equipment. The history of NATO's defense spending commitments is a permanent reminder that promises are only worth what their implementation delivers.

Thinking long-term in a world of short cycles

One of the structural handicaps of the West facing authoritarian regimes is the short electoral cycle that shapes our policies. Putin, Kim Jong-un, Xi Jinping think in decades. Our leaders think in four-to-five-year mandates, with one eye on next quarter's polls. This temporal misalignment is a genuine advantage for the authoritarians.

Meeting this challenge requires institutional mechanisms that protect long-term commitments from short-term political shifts: formal treaties rather than informal pledges, defense budgets written into multi-year legislation, aid programs for Ukraine structured across several years. These mechanisms exist — the European Union has made progress in this direction — but they must be strengthened and broadened.

North Korea and NATO: closing the strategic blind spot

Why North Korea must enter the Western security calculus

NATO was built for the defense of the North Atlantic. Its geographic and doctrinal mandate does not formally cover Northeast Asia. Yet the events of 2024–2026 have made this distinction artificial: North Korean soldiers killed on Ukrainian soil, North Korean munitions striking Ukrainian cities, and the strategic partnership treaty signed between Pyongyang and Moscow in June 2024 have made North Korea an active participant in the European conflict. Maintaining geographic silos from another era in the face of this reality would be a strategic error.

The operational response requires enhanced coordination between NATO and Indo-Pacific allies — South Korea, Japan, Australia — all of whom have a vital stake in preventing North Korea from capitalizing on the Ukrainian conflict to upgrade its ballistic capabilities and its war chest. The RIMPAC and Valiant Shield joint exercises are a start, but a genuine architecture for responding to North Korean proliferation applied to the European context remains to be built. That is the diplomatic and military work of the months ahead.

North Korean prisoners of war: an unprecedented diplomatic window

In June 2026, confirmed reports cited by media including Caliber.az indicate that Seoul opened the door to interrogating North Korean prisoners of war captured by Ukraine. This information is remarkable on several counts. First, it irrefutably confirms that North Korean soldiers have fought alongside Russian forces — a fact that Moscow and Pyongyang long denied. Second, it creates a rare opportunity: to obtain direct information on the structure, training, and capabilities of the North Korean special forces involved in the conflict.

These prisoners are also a potential diplomatic pressure point on Kim Jong-un. The public disclosure of North Korean involvement through direct testimony undermines Pyongyang's official posture of denying any military engagement on behalf of Russia. For Western and South Korean intelligence services, every North Korean soldier captured alive is an invaluable source on command structures, the true state of Kim's army, and the precise terms of the secret agreement with Moscow.

Conclusion: the authoritarian axis will only stop if it meets a wall

Two years of treaty, two years of unlearned lessons

Two years after the Russia–North Korea treaty was signed, the ledger is clear: this alliance has delivered on its promises for its signatories. North Korea has provided what it pledged — munitions, soldiers, diplomatic backing. Russia has furnished technology, protection at the Security Council, and international legitimacy. The alliance works because the short-term interests of both parties are genuinely aligned.

What has not worked is the Western response. Not because we have done nothing — we have done a great deal — but because we have not done enough, fast enough, with enough consistency and resolve. Putin is betting that Western fatigue will set in before the costs of his war become unbearable. That is a rational bet from Moscow's vantage point. Refuting that calculation is our collective mission.

Zelensky, Ukraine, and the rest of us

Volodymyr Zelensky is holding. His country is holding. Against a Russia armed by North Korea, against missiles raining down on its cities, against the exhaustion of two years of total war, against the international temptation of appeasement, Ukraine is holding. This resistance is not free: it costs Ukrainian lives, infrastructure, an entire generation scarred by war. This resistance deserves better than our ambivalence. It deserves our full, clear, durable support — with no conditions attached that amount to surrender.

The second anniversary of the Moscow-Pyongyang treaty is also, in its own way, a call to action for democracies. The authoritarian axis has charted its course. It falls to us to chart ours — and to follow it all the way through.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

Who I am and what I do not claim to be

I am a columnist and analyst, not a war correspondent or an accredited government expert. I do not have access to classified intelligence, nor do I have direct sources inside the governments concerned. My analysis rests on open sources, public documents, verified reporting, and analyses from recognized institutions. I can be wrong on specific factual points, and I commit to correcting any error that is brought to my attention.

My position is clearly pro-Ukraine and pro-democracy. This is not a neutral journalistic position; it is an openly assumed editorial stance, grounded in my conviction that Russia's aggression against a sovereign state is unacceptable and that democracies have a duty to defend one another. I declare this position explicitly so that readers can evaluate my analyses with full awareness of where I stand.

What I do not know with certainty

The exact number of North Korean soldiers deployed in Ukraine, the precise nature of the technologies transferred by Russia to North Korea, the full details of the agreements between Moscow and Pyongyang — all of this remains partially opaque. Available estimates vary by source, and none is definitive. I have chosen to report the ranges most frequently cited by Western intelligence services and reputable independent sources, indicating uncertainties where they exist.

What is certain, however, is the existence and the reality of this alliance, the delivery of munitions, and the deployment of North Korean soldiers. On these fundamental points, the consensus across sources is solid enough for me to present them as established facts rather than as allegations.

Sources

Primary sources

North Korea vows deeper ties with Russia on 2nd anniversary of treaty signing — Ground News, June 22, 2026

Kim Jong-un calls for destructive military posture against South Korea — ABC News, June 25, 2026

Seoul opens door to North Korean POWs held in Ukraine — Caliber.az, June 23, 2026

Russia concerned about US-South Korea military activities near DPRK — TASS, June 25, 2026

Secondary sources

160 Ukrainian POWs released, UAE mediation — Kyiv Independent, June 26, 2026

ISW: Putin and Lavrov positions amount to total Ukrainian capitulation — ISW, June 23, 2026

EU maintains full Russia economic sanctions wall through 2027 — Euromaidan Press, June 26, 2026