Seoul:

North Korea on Sunday floated balloons carrying trash towards South Korea, South Korea’s military said, declaring it would respond with “full-scale” loudspeaker broadcasts.

The South Korean military said the North’s actions raising tensions near the heavily armed border could have fatal consequences, adding the North Korean regime would be solely responsible.

“As we warned several times, the military will carry out loudspeaker broadcasts in full scale and on all fronts starting 1 p.m. today,” the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said, calling the North’s launch of balloons vulgar and shameful.

Activists and defectors in South Korea have for years sent their own balloons carrying propaganda leaflets and other items into North Korea, angering Pyongyang.

Earlier this week, South Korea’s military decided to resume its round-the-clock loudspeaker broadcast campaign targeting North Korea in response to what it called the despicable launch of balloons by Pyongyang carrying trash across the border.

Since May, North Korea has been floating thousands of balloons with bags of trash attached to them, which have become a new source of tension between the two Koreas.

Blaring propaganda, world news and K-pop music, South Korea’s broadcasts are considered by military officials and activists as an effective form of psychological warfare.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

North and South Korea began removing mines at two sites inside their heavily fortified border on October 1, 2018, as part of their deals to ease decades-long military tensions. File
| Photo Credit: AP

North Korean landmines could be swept into South Korea by flooding, South Korea’s military warned on July 17, after the North has recently placed tens of thousands of additional deadly explosives along the rivals’ heavily fortified border.

North Korea’s minelaying is part of construction at the border that’s been going on since April, which also includes adding anti-tank barriers and reinforcing roads. South Korea officials believe North Korea aims to boost its frontline security posture and prevent its soldiers and citizens from defecting to South Korea.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff told local reporters that flooding caused by summer rainfall could wash the mines over the border, adding that North Korea might also deliberately float mines downriver as a provocation.

The contents of the briefing were shared with AP.

Concerns about possible North Korean provocation have deepened after Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, threatened new countermeasures Tuesday against South Korean civilian activists’ efforts to drop leaflets over the north by balloon. North Korea has earlier responded by flying trash-carrying balloons toward South Korea, which have not caused major damage.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that North Korea’s military has suffered “many casualties” from about 10 mine explosions and heat exposure during the intense border works.

An estimated 2 million mines are believed to be strewn in and around Koreas’ 248 kilometre (154 miles)- long and 4 kilometres (2.5 miles)-wide land border. Experts say both Koreas have poorly managed their mines and don’t know exactly how many they have planted or where they are.

It’s not unusual for wooden North Korean mine boxes to wash downriver in summer, causing deadly incidents in South Korea. A 2015 mine explosion blamed on North Korea maimed two South Korean soldiers and pushed the rivals to the brink of an armed conflict.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff said it’s it’s also looking at other possible provocations by North Korea, such as firing across the border at incoming South Korean balloons. It said the South Korean military is strengthening its readiness to repel any potential aggression by North Korea.

North Korea is extremely sensitive to South Korean activists’ efforts to scatter anti-Pyongyang leaflets, seeing them as a threat its political system and a challenge to its ban on access to foreign news for most of its 26 million people, experts say.

In 2020, North Korea destroyed an unoccupied South Korean-built liaison office on its territory in a furious response to South Korean civilian leafleting campaigns. In 2014, North Korea fired at balloons flying toward its territory and South Korea returned fire, though there were no casualties.

Animosities between the rival Koreas have been running high in recent years, with North Korea extending provocative weapons tests and South Korea expanding its military drills with the United States in a tit-for-tat cycle.

North Korea says it was compelled to pursue nuclear weapons to cope with U.S. military threats, though the U.S. and South Korea have steadfastly said they have no intentions of invading the North.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un presents a pair of Pungsan dogs to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in Pyongyang, North Korea on Wednesday. (Image provided by Korean State media)
| Photo Credit: AP via KCNA

The story so far: Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a “comprehensive strategic” partnership deal with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang on Wednesday as the two countries sought to deepen their security ties in a bid to challenge the West-dominated world order.

Mr. Putin was on a two-day visit to North Korea – his first in 24 years – and signed the deal that has been hailed as the “strongest between Moscow and Pyongyang since the end of the Cold War” by experts. Kim Jong-un has called it a ‘breakthrough” pact.

Also Read:Kim Jong Un was ‘sincere’ in denuclearisation talks: former South Korea president

What are the historical relations between Russia and North Korea?

Ties between Pyongyang and Moscow go back to the Soviet times. The Soviet Union was the first nation to recognise North Korea, or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), when it came into existence in 1948 under Kim Jong-un’s grandfather, Kim Il-sung. Moscow supported DPRK in the 1950-53 Korean War while the U.S. supported the Republic of Korea (ROK), or South Korea. In a previously classified letter, which is now available in Wilson Centre’s digital archives, Kim Il-sung thanked Soviet leader Joseph Stalin for his “invaluable assistance” to DPRK’s “struggle for independence.”

Stalin’s support for DPRK in the Korean War, however, also benefited the leader’s larger ambition to push back the U.S. in the Cold War, which was evident from another “top secret” letter he wrote under the codename “Fillipov” in 1950. “One might ask why we have now returned to the Security Council. We have returned to continue exposing the aggressive policy of the American government and to prevent it from using the flag of the Security Council as a smokescreen for its aggression. Now that America has become aggressively involved in Korea, it will be very easy to achieve this goal while in the Security Council. I think that this is clear and needs no further explanation,” Stalin said in a letter to the Soviet ambassador in Prague.

Also Read: Russia and North Korea sign partnership deal, vowing closer ties as rivalry deepens with West

Initially robust, relations between the countries declined as the rift between China and Russia grew after the Korean War ended. The Soviet Union also established diplomatic relations with ROK, further isolating DPRK in the region. Russia, which succeeded the Soviet Union, continued these diplomatic relations.

Mr. Putin’s election as President of Russia in 2000, however, somewhat turned the tide in favour of DPRK. After his election, he visited Pyongyang in July 2000, to meet Kim Jong-II, former leader of DPRK and Kim Jong-un’s father, and the two issued a joint criticism of U.S. missile defence plans.

In 2012, Russia agreed to write off 90% of North Korea’s estimated $11 billion debt, although Russia supported UN Security Council sanctions against the North between 2016 and 2017 as Kim Jong-un accelerated the country’s nuclear and missile tests. Kim-Jong un, in fact, attempted to improve his diplomatic ties with the U.S. and ROK in favour of his nuclear programme, while also working on relations with historical allies China and Russia.

Strategic visits by North Korean leaders to Russia are also symbolic of the cooperation between the two countries. Kim Jong-iI visited Russia in 2001, 2002, and in 2010; while his son and current leader Kim Jong-un visited Russia in 2019 and 2023. The two countries also share a land border.

What does the new deal entail?

According to DPRK’s state-run Korean Central News Agency, Kim Jong-un and Mr. Putin discussed a “series of important plans for safeguarding the common core interests while deepening the strategic partnership and alliance relations between the two countries.” The pact, officially called the “Treaty on the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Russian Federation,” calls for immediate military and other assistance “using all available means” if either party is involved in a war, which it claims is in alignment with Article 51 of the U.N. charter (dealing with self-defence.)

The treaty also talks about building a “just and multipolar new world order,” and taking joint actions to strengthen defence capabilities. Food, which is a chronic area of shortage for the DPRK, also finds mention in the treaty.

What does the deal mean in the current geopolitical context?

North Korea has, time and again, expressed its support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that started in February 2022, alluding to a crucial positive era in its relationship with Russia. In July 2022, North Korea recognised Donetsk and Luhansk, in Ukraine’s Donbas region, as independent States after Russia and Syria did so. (Both these regions were annexed by Russia in September that year.) DPRK has, in the past, also blamed the Russia-Ukraine crisis on U.S.-led West’s “hegemonic policy”.

The U.S. and South Korea believe DPRK has been supplying Russia artillery, missiles and other military equipment for use in Ukraine, as Russia continues to wage the largest land war in Europe since the end of the Second World War. Russia, which has a vibrant military-industrial base, is reportedly sourcing weapons from North Korea and Iran, while the U.S. and European nations continue to assist Ukraine.

In October 2023, Beyond Parallel, a U.S.-based think tank, reported a “dramatic increase” in freight rail traffic on the land border between Russia and DPRK following a summit between Mr. Kim and Mr. Putin. “Given that Kim and Putin discussed some military exchanges and cooperation at their recent summit, the dramatic increase in rail traffic likely indicates North Korea’s supply of arms and munitions to Russia. However, the extensive use of tarps to cover the shipping crates/containers and equipment makes it impossible to conclusively identify what is seen at (North Korea’s) Tumangang Rail Facility,” the organisation said. Both Russia and North Korea have denied any weapons sale. Experts also believe North Korea is leveraging high-tech nuclear weapons and missile technologies from Russia in exchange for the arms.

Russia has also been a significant supplier of energy to North Korea— even more important after it suffered huge losses in revenue as Europe cut off trade with the country following its invasion of Ukraine. U.S., as a common adversary, also brings Russia and North Korea together as both countries attempt to create a shift in global power away from the West, with China on their side.