PROFILE: Kim Jong-un and Putin, two years of alliance — what Iran understood that the West refuses to see

June 19, 2026: a date no one wanted to mark

June 19, 2026 marks the second anniversary of the mutual defense treaty signed between Russia and North Korea at the Pyongyang summit. Two years. Enough time to transform a diplomatic agreement into an operational military architecture. While the West looked elsewhere, Moscow and Pyongyang solidified an alliance that goes far beyond simple exchanges of missiles for fuel.

Pyongyang officially described the treaty as an "essential legal weapon" for its global strategy. This is not an empty phrase. It is a declaration of global strategic posture, a signal directed at Washington, Seoul, Tokyo, and Taipei alike. The message is clear: North Korea is no longer an isolated pariah state — it is an armed, useful, and protected actor.

The profile of a relationship forged in Ukrainian blood

To understand this anniversary, one must look at what happened on the battlefields of Ukraine since autumn 2024. Approximately 11,000 North Korean soldiers were deployed to Russia according to South Korean intelligence. These men were not engaged in humanitarian work. They fought. They suffered losses. According to a BBC investigation based on satellite imagery, approximately 2,300 North Korean soldiers were killed in this war that was supposedly none of their concern — or rather, one that concerned them greatly.

Two thousand three hundred dead. Sons of North Korean families, sent to die for Putin in Ukrainian trenches. Kim Jong-un offered them glory. In return, he received technology. This macabre transaction deserves to be named plainly.

What Moscow gave, what Pyongyang received

The treaty is not limited to a troop deployment. In exchange for North Korean forces, Moscow provided Pyongyang with food, financial assistance, and technical cooperation. That last point is the most alarming. Technical cooperation in this context means: combat data, ballistic assessments, intelligence on adversary defenses. It is a transfer of military expertise that Pyongyang could never have obtained otherwise.

The North Korean KN-23 ballistic missiles were used by Russia in Ukraine starting late 2023 — early 2024. Initial results were disappointing — insufficient accuracy, high failure rate. But every missed shot was a lesson. Every analyzed impact was a data point. And Russia transmitted that data to Pyongyang. That is how Ukraine became, against its will, the proving ground for the refinement of Kim Jong-un's ballistic arsenal.

A calculating Putin, never disinterested

Vladimir Putin is not an ideologue. He is a dealer in power. What this anniversary reveals is the cold, pragmatic logic of Moscow: use Pyongyang to fill its gaps in artillery and manpower, while offering Kim the tools that will allow him to threaten his neighbors further. It is a cross-investment in global instability.

The Russian war machine now functions as a threat multiplier: it tests foreign weapons, extracts the data, and redistributes them to its partners. This cycle transforms every conflict into technological improvement for the Moscow-Pyongyang-Tehran axis.

Putin has turned the war in Ukraine into a research and development service for his allies. Every missile that falls on Kharkiv potentially improves the precision of systems that will target Seoul or Tel Aviv tomorrow. This reality should chill the blood of every Western strategist.

The lesson Kim drew from global disarmament

There is a relentless through-line in Kim Jong-un's logic: denuclearization does not protect — armament does. Saddam's Iraq, with no verified weapons of mass destruction, was invaded. Gaddafi's Libya, after renouncing nuclear ambitions, descended into chaos. Iran resisted precisely because it maintained nuclear ambiguity. Kim Jong-un drew the obvious conclusions: never disarm, never negotiate under pressure, always arm further.

The treaty with Russia fits squarely within this doctrine. It is not an alliance born of ideological conviction. It is a calculated life insurance policy. By entangling himself with Moscow, Kim has made himself harder to isolate, more costly to sanction, more dangerous to confront. It is a perverse rationality, but it is rationality nonetheless.

Kim Jong-un in 2026: stronger than he has ever been

In June 2026, Kim Jong-un is no longer simply the leader of a reclusive regime. He is a strategic partner of Russia, an indirect ally of Iran, a factor in China's calculations. He has dispatched tens of thousands of soldiers to fight in Europe. He has received in return technologies that improve his missiles. He is building new warships and has obtained constitutional authority over nuclear forces. This is the profile of a man who is winning.

I don't know whether Kim Jong-un sleeps well at night. But objectively, on the geopolitical chessboard of 2026, he is moving his pieces with a coherence that the West would do well to study closely rather than simply dismissing him as an irrational leader.

The Iran-USA deal as a signal to axis powers

19FortyFive stated it plainly: the Iran deal does not stop at Iran. Russia, China, and North Korea are watching. What Iran showed the other axis powers is that Western pressure eventually turns into negotiation, and that negotiation can yield concessions. The signal sent by any imperfect deal with Tehran is heard in Pyongyang: holding out pays, negotiating pays even more.

But where Iran plays a negotiating game, Kim Jong-un refuses even to enter that dance. He prefers the absolute certainty of armament over the uncertainty of a diplomatic agreement. It is precisely because he has watched Iran negotiate — and pay a domestic political price for it — that he chooses another path. The path of total military consolidation, without compromise.

Tehran, Pyongyang, Moscow: an axis of mutual learning

What the West does not perceive clearly enough is that these regimes communicate, observe each other, and learn from one another. North Korea supplies missiles to Russia, which tests them in Ukraine. Iran supplies Shahed drones that enrich Russian combat experience. And both receive in return technologies, diplomatic protection, and enhanced legitimacy on their respective dossiers. It is a shared military learning ecosystem, and the West has not yet fully internalized this reality.

The Moscow-Pyongyang-Tehran axis is not a formal alliance in the classical sense. It is something more fluid and more dangerous: a mutual learning network where every local war feeds the global destructive capacity of the other members. It is a silent strategic revolution.

North Korean prisoners of war: the irrefutable proof

On June 23, 2026, South Korea announced that it would welcome all North Korean prisoners of war captured by Ukraine who wish to come there. This diplomatically understated declaration contains an explosive truth: North Korean soldiers were captured in Ukraine. Their existence is the living, irrefutable proof that Pyongyang did indeed send its men to fight for Putin.

The figures are telling. According to South Korean intelligence, between 14,000 and 15,000 North Korean soldiers had been deployed in the Kursk region by late 2024. Approximately 6,000 killed or wounded by early 2026. These men did not stray there by accident. They were following orders. And the Ukrainian and South Korean foreign ministers were due to meet in Seoul on June 30, 2026 to discuss the diplomatic implications.

Seoul caught between two fires: north and south

Seoul's position is delicate. It must manage a direct threat from the north — a regime armed with nuclear missiles that is improving its capabilities through other nations' wars — while maintaining regional alliances and avoiding provoking Beijing, which watches every move on the Korean Peninsula with keen attention. The Asan Institute estimates that approximately 14,000 North Korean soldiers are still in Russia as of early 2026. That figure represents a battle-hardened combat force that will one day return to the ranks of the North Korean army.

Those North Korean soldiers returning from Ukraine will not be the same men who left. They will have seen real war, suffered real losses, learned real tactics. What will Kim Jong-un do with them? That answer concerns me deeply.

What two years of alliance reveals about Western blind spots

Two years ago, when the Russia-North Korea treaty was signed in Pyongyang, part of the Western establishment downplayed its significance. There was talk of symbolic communication, of a facade alliance between two desperate regimes. Two years on, the facts have refuted that optimism. Thousands of North Korean soldiers fought in Ukraine. Hundreds died. North Korean ballistic missiles were fired at Ukrainian cities. That was not symbolic.

The West must stop analyzing its adversaries' alliances through the lens of its own criteria for diplomatic rationality. These regimes do not need ideological alignment to cooperate. They only need converging interests. And their interests all converge on one point: weakening the liberal international order that the West has built since 1945.

Trump, a necessary evil in a world without guardrails

The Trump administration has at least the merit of a brutal clarity: it names threats, it tallies costs, it demands that allies take responsibility for themselves. That is not elegant diplomatically. It is not comfortable for European capitals. But in a world where Putin and Kim are building arsenals together, the alternative to an armed and demanding West is not peace — it is gradual capitulation. Trump may be a necessary evil. American isolationism would be a certain disaster.

I have no sympathy for Trump's style. But when he says Europe must pay for its own defense, he is fundamentally right. The anniversary of the NK-Russia treaty proves it once again: the world does not wait for democracies to be ready.

Four regimes, one common strategy

What the second anniversary of the NK-Russia treaty reveals is the emergence of an increasingly structured anti-Western architecture. Russia provides firepower and great-power prestige. North Korea provides ammunition, missiles, and soldiers. Iran provides drones and sanctions-evasion expertise. China provides diplomatic protection, trade, and financial cover. Each plays a precise role within an overall system.

None of these actors needs a common operations room to function. Their interests are sufficiently aligned for informal coordination to suffice. And while the West debates sanctions and military aid, this axis builds, tests, deploys, and learns. The symmetry is not in the West's favor on this point.

What the future of this anniversary might mean

If the first two years of the treaty produced thousands of North Korean dead in Ukraine, increasingly improved KN-23 missiles, and a constitutionally empowered Kim Jong-un, what will the next two years produce? Technical cooperation is deepening. Military exchanges are being institutionalized. Pyongyang celebrates this agreement as a pillar of its global strategy. This is not a flash in the pan. It is a foundation.

In two years, at the fourth anniversary of this treaty, how many new North Korean weapons will have been tested in real conditions? How many additional soldiers will have been sent to die for Putin? And will the West have finally understood that these anniversaries are not commemorations — they are progress reports?

When a deal with Tehran becomes a signal for Pyongyang

The second anniversary of the NK-Russia treaty coincides with nuclear negotiations with Iran. For Kim Jong-un, every Western compromise with Tehran is analyzed through a single lens: does negotiating under pressure pay off? Pyongyang's answer is no. Total armament protects better than partial negotiation. And the treaty with Moscow is the ultimate guarantee of that doctrine.

Analysts at 19FortyFive have stated it clearly: Russia, China, and North Korea are watching every Iranian deal. If a deal with Tehran is perceived as a Western diplomatic victory, the effect on Pyongyang will be zero — Kim will not negotiate. If the deal is perceived as a concession, the effect will be even worse: Kim will interpret it as confirmation that holding out pays.

The axis as a diplomatic learning system

What the NK-Russia treaty has taught Pyongyang is the value of solid diplomatic protection. Russia sits on the Security Council and can block any resolution. China does the same. Together, they guarantee North Korea near-total diplomatic immunity from UN sanctions. No Iranian deal can replicate that shield for Tehran.

The anniversary of the NK-Russia treaty thus reveals a fundamental asymmetry: Iran negotiates because it is economically vulnerable. North Korea does not negotiate because it has a partner shielding it. Understanding this difference is essential for calibrating any Western strategy toward these two nuclear dossiers.

Iran and the DPRK are often treated as two versions of the same nuclear proliferation problem. But they are not. Iran is economically vulnerable and accessible to pressure. North Korea is shielded by Russia and China. These are two different equations that call for different responses. Conflating the two means failing on both fronts.Two years of the NK-Russia treaty: the West spent two years debating sanctions while Pyongyang built a nuclear navy, refined its missiles, and hardened its soldiers in Ukraine. Time is the most precious strategic factor. And the West has wasted two years on this issue.

The alliance that transformed the North Korean threat

In two years, the mutual defense treaty between Russia and North Korea transformed a pariah regime into the active military partner of a major power. It allowed Pyongyang to test its weapons under real conditions, receive combat technologies, accumulate hard currency, and enhance its international legitimacy. This is an undeniable strategic success for Kim Jong-un, however cynical and murderous it may be.

What the West must do now

Faced with this reality, the West cannot afford nostalgia or denial. It must clearly name this axis as a structural threat, strengthen its Indo-Pacific alliances, maintain and increase support for Ukraine, and approach every deal with Iran or North Korea with total lucidity about the signals it sends to all other actors in this axis. The profile of this alliance says a great deal about what awaits the world if the West lets its guard down.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a columnist and analyst. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. I claim analytical clarity, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

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