United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres. File.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Russia must abide by United Nations sanctions on North Korea, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on June 21 after the two countries this week deepened ties and agreed to provide immediate military assistance if either faces armed aggression.

The pact — signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Wednesday — follows U.S. accusations that Pyongyang has been transferring weapons to Russia for use against Ukraine, which it invaded in February 2022. Both Moscow and Pyongyang have denied the accusations.

Also read: What’s behind the Russia-North Korea security pact? | Explained

The U.N. Security Council will meet June 28 on North Korea, diplomats said, at the request of the U.S., France, Britain, South Korea and Japan, who want to discuss weapons transfers by Pyongyang in violation of council resolutions.

Formally known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), North Korea has been under U.N. sanctions since 2006 for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, and those measures have been strengthened over the years — with Russia’s support.

“There are sanctions approved by the Security Council in relation to the DPRK,” Mr. Guterres told reporters on Friday. “Any relationship that any country has with DPRK, including the Russian Federation, must entirely abide by those sanctions.”

Russia’s mission to the United Nations declined to comment on Mr. Guterres’ remarks.

For the past several years the 15-member Security Council has been divided over how to deal with Pyongyang. Russia and China say more sanctions will not help and want such measures to be eased. They proposed some sanctions be lifted in December 2019 but have never put their draft resolution to a vote.

In May 2022, the pair vetoed a U.S.-led push to impose more U.N. sanctions on North Korea over its renewed ballistic missile launches. Russia then vetoed in March the renewal of a panel of experts monitoring enforcement of U.N. sanctions.

Before the panel disbanded at the end of April, three of the experts travelled to Ukraine and — in a report to the Security Council seen by Reuters — determined that the debris from a missile that landed in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Jan. 2 was from a North Korean Hwasong-11 series ballistic missile.

China and Russia say joint military drills by the United States and South Korea provoke Pyongyang, while Washington accuses Beijing and Moscow of emboldening North Korea by shielding it from more sanctions.

President Vladimir Putin arrived in North Korea early on June 18, Russian news agencies reported, after he said the two countries want to cooperate closely to overcome U.S.-led sanctions in the face of intensifying confrontations with Washington.

Mr. Putin was met at Pyongyang’s airport by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, according to the news agencies, RIA-Novosti and Interfax.

Mr. Putin, making his first trip to North Korea in 24 years, said in comments that appeared in its state media hours before he landed that he appreciates the country’s firm support of his military actions in Ukraine. The Kremlin launched a full-scale invasion of the neighboring country in 2022.

He said the countries would continue to “resolutely oppose” what he described as Western ambitions “to hinder the establishment of a multipolar world order based on justice, mutual respect for sovereignty, considering each other’s interests.”

Mr. Putin’s visit comes amid growing concerns about an arms arrangement in which Pyongyang provides Moscow with badly needed munitions to fuel Russia’s war in Ukraine in exchange for economic assistance and technology transfers that would enhance the threat posed by Kim’s nuclear weapons and missile program.

In the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, the streets were decorated with portraits of Mr. Putin and Russian flags. A banner on a building said: “We warmly welcome the President of the Russian Federation.”

Mr. Putin also said in his published remarks that Russia and North Korea will develop trade and payment systems “that are not controlled by the West” and jointly oppose sanctions against the countries, which he described as “illegal, unilateral restrictions.”

North Korea is under heavy U.N. Security Council economic sanctions over its nuclear weapons and missile programs, while Russia is also grappling with sanctions by the United States and its Western partners over its aggression in Ukraine.

Mr. Putin said the countries will also expand cooperation in tourism, culture and education.

Before heading to North Korea, Putin traveled to Yakutsk, a city in eastern Russia, where he met regional Gov. Aisen Nikolayev, and received briefings on technology and defense-related projects. He also met with young professionals working in Russia’s Far East.

Mr. Putin is being accompanied by several top officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Denis Mantrurov, Defense Minister Andrei Belousov and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, according to his foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov. He said a number of documents will be signed during the visit, possibly including an agreement on a comprehensive strategic partnership.

U.S. and South Korean officials say military, economic and other exchanges between North Korea and Russia have sharply increased since Kim met Putin in September in the Russian Far East, their first since 2019.

U.S. and South Korean officials accuse the North of providing Russia with artillery, missiles and other military equipment for use in Ukraine, possibly in return for key military technologies and aid. Both Pyongyang and Moscow deny accusations about North Korean weapons transfers, which would violate multiple U.N. Security Council sanctions that Russia previously endorsed.

Along with China, Russia has provided political cover for Mr. Kim’s continuing efforts to advance his nuclear arsenal, repeatedly blocking U.S.-led efforts to impose fresh U.N. sanctions on the North over its weapons tests.

In March, a Russian veto at the United Nations ended monitoring of U.N. sanctions against North Korea over its nuclear program, prompting Western accusations that Moscow is seeking to avoid scrutiny as it buys weapons from Pyongyang for use in Ukraine. U.S. and South Korean officials have said they are discussing options for a new mechanism for monitoring the North.

Earlier this year, Mr. Putin sent Mr. Kim a high-end Aurus Senat limousine, which he had shown to the North Korean leader when they met in September. Observers said the shipment violated a U.N. resolution banning the supply of luxury items to North Korea.

John Kirby, spokesperson of the U.S. National Security Council, said the deepening relationship between Moscow and Pyongyang is concerning, “not just because of the impacts it’s going to have on the Ukrainian people, because we know North Korean ballistic missiles are still being used to hit Ukrainian targets, but because there could be some reciprocity here that could affect security on the Korean Peninsula.”

“We haven’t seen the parameters of all of that right now, certainly haven’t seen it come to fruition. But we’re certainly going to be watching that very, very closely,” he said.

Lim Soosuk, spokesperson of South Korea’s Foreign Ministry, said Seoul has been stressing to Moscow that any cooperation between Russia and North Korea must not “proceed in a direction that violates U.N. Security Council resolutions or undermines peace and stability in the region.”

Tensions on the Korean Peninsulas are at their highest point in years, with the pace of both Kim’s weapons tests and combined military exercises involving the United States, South Korea and Japan intensifying in a tit-for-tat cycle. The Koreas also have engaged in Cold War-style psychological warfare that involved North Korea dropping tons of trash on the South with balloons, and the South broadcasting anti-North Korean propaganda with its loudspeakers.

South Korea’s military said soldiers fired warning shots to repel North Korean soldiers who temporarily crossed the land border Tuesday, apparently in error, for the second time this month.

Mr. Putin has continuously sought to rebuild ties with Pyongyang as part of efforts to restore his country’s clout and its Soviet-era alliances. Moscow’s ties with North Korea weakened after the 1991 Soviet collapse. Kim Jong Un first met with Mr. Putin in 2019 in Russia’s eastern port of Vladivostok.

After North Korea, the Kremlin said Putin will also visit Vietnam for talks that are expected to be focused on trade. The United States, which has spent years strengthening ties and accelerating trade with Vietnam, criticized Putin’s planned visit.

“As Russia continues to seek international support to sustain its illegal and brutal war against Ukraine, we reiterate that no country should give Putin a platform to promote his war of aggression and otherwise allow him to normalize his atrocities,” a U.S. Embassy spokesperson in Vietnam said in a statement.

This photo provided by the North Korean government, shows what it says a test fire of tactical ballistic missile at an undisclosed place in North Korea Thursday, May 17, 2024.

North Korea has test-fired a tactical ballistic missile equipped with a “new autonomous navigation system”, state media said on May 18, with leader Kim Jong Un vowing to boost the country’s nuclear force.

Mr. Kim oversaw the Friday test-launch into the East Sea, also known as the Sea of Japan, on a mission to evaluate the “accuracy and reliability of the autonomous navigation system”, Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

The launch was the latest in a string of ever more sophisticated tests by North Korea, which has fired off cruise missiles, tactical rockets and hypersonic weapons in recent months, in what the nuclear-armed, U.N.-sanctioned country says is a drive to upgrade its defences.

The Friday launch came hours after leader Mr. Kim’s powerful sister Kim Yo Jong denied allegations by Seoul and Washington that Pyongyang is shipping weapons to Russia for use in its war in Ukraine.

Seoul’s military on Friday described the test as “several flying objects presumed to be short-range ballistic missiles” from North Korea’s eastern Wonsan area into waters off its coast.

The suspected missiles travelled around 300 kilometres (186 miles) before splashing down in waters between South Korea and Japan, the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Seoul said.

“The accuracy and reliability of the autonomous navigation system were verified through the test fire,” Pyongyang’s KCNA said Saturday, adding leader Kim expressed “great satisfaction” over the launch.

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In a separate report released on May 18, KCNA said Mr. Kim visited a military production facility the previous day and urged for “more rapidly bolstering the nuclear force” of the nation “without halt and hesitation”.

During the visit, he said the “enemies would be afraid of and dare not to play with fire only when they witness the nuclear combat posture of our state”, according to KCNA.

Pyongyang’s nuclear force “will meet a very important change and occupy a remarkably raised strategic position” when its munitions production plan, aimed to be completed by 2025, is carried out, it added.

Putin’s attention

Seoul and Washington have accused North Korea of sending arms to Russia, which would violate rafts of United Nations sanctions on both countries, with experts saying the recent spate of testing may be of weapons destined for use on battlefields in Ukraine.

North Korea is barred by U.N. sanctions from any tests using ballistic technology, but its key ally Moscow used its U.N. Security Council veto in March to effectively end U.N. monitoring of violations, for which Pyongyang has specifically thanked Russia.

Also Read | The quick transformation of Russia-North Korea ties

But leader Kim’s sister Kim Yo Jong said Friday that Pyongyang had “no intention to export our military technical capabilities to any country”, adding that the North’s priority was “to make the war readiness and war deterrent of our army more perfect in quality and quantity”.

She accused Seoul and Washington of “misleading the public opinion” with their allegations that Pyongyang was transferring arms to Russia.

The Friday launches come as Russian leader Vladimir Putin was in China on Friday, the final day of a visit aiming to promote crucial trade with Beijing – North Korea’s most important ally – and win greater support for his war effort in Ukraine.

North Korea’s latest weapons tests were likely intended to attract the attention of Mr. Putin while he was in China, said Ahn Chan-il, a defector-turned-researcher who runs the World Institute for North Korea Studies.

The North would benefit greatly from an expected visit by Putin to Pyongyang, and “they want their country to be used as a military logistics base during Russia’s ongoing war (in Ukraine)“, he told AFP.

Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, said: “China and Russia’s irresponsible handling of North Korea, riding on the new Cold War dynamics, is further encouraging Pyongyang’s nuclear armament.”

Inter-Korean relations are at one of their lowest points in years, with Pyongyang declaring Seoul its “principal enemy”.

It has jettisoned agencies dedicated to reunification and threatened war over “even 0.001 mm” of territorial infringement.