Between the Vladivostok Summits: Putin’s Pledges and Kim’s Promises
The Abbasid Caliph Abu Ja‘far Al-Mansur promised Muhammad ibn ‘Abdullah ibn al-Hassan ibn al-Hassan ibn ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib safety and a pact if he returned to obedience and submission. Muhammad ibn ‘Abdullah wrote to him: “You have promised me what you had promised men before me of covenant and security, so what security will you give me? Is it the security [you gave to] Ibn Hubayra, or the security [you gave to] your uncle ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Ali, or the security [you gave to] Abu Muslim [al-Khorasani]?” [1]Al-Mansur had indeed granted them security, but then he betrayed and killed them all.
“Sanctions against North Korea were adopted in a completely different geopolitical situation when there were problems establishing dialogue (with Pyongyang), when there were quite serious debates in the Security Council,” Sergei Lavrov told Russian TV reporter Pavel Zarubin.
He said the reason that Russia and China had blocked a further U.S.-drafted sanctions resolution against North Korea last year was that the West had given a false promise at the time of the original sanctions on humanitarian aid for the country.”[2]
However, events on the eve of and following the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 2375, which included unprecedented harsh UN sanctions against North Korea, show Russia not objecting to the resolution’s wording nor its severity. It did not resort to its right to veto the resolution. These sanctions include limiting fuel exports to North Korea to only 500,000 tons annually while monitoring ships and North Korean ports to enforce these limits, imposing a ban on exporting North Korean minerals, products, and goods, and freezing its operations in China and other countries. Instead, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said after North Korea conducted its sixth nuclear test in September 2017 that “Russia, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, has for many years taken part in the development of relevant resolutions that prohibit the DPRK from carrying out nuclear tests and launching ballistic missiles. The strict international sanctions restrictions in force today have the specific goal of preventing the development of Pyongyang’s nuclear missile programs.”[3]
Russia collaborated with Western countries in 2017 to pass UN resolutions against North Korea, hoping that Russia would secure strategic gains from the United States after former President Donald Trump had taken office in January 2017. Russia pinned its hopes on Trump’s administration and its inexperience in politics and international relations.
Russia sought to build a genuine partnership with the United States during Trump’s era to resolve many crises and address complex issues that had persisted since the presidency of Democrat Barack Obama concerning Syria, Libya, Ukraine, Serbia, and other unresolved matters.
Russia vigorously pursued the establishment of this partnership on many fronts to lure the Trump administration into cooperation on the North Korean nuclear issue and its intercontinental ballistic missile program. This resulted in the joint adoption of two UN Security Council resolutions in 2016 and 2017, through which Russia harbored hopes of building this partnership through such actions.
Russia was part of the Six-Party Talks with the United States, China, Japan, South Korea, and North Korea since 2003. However, China and the United States conspired to exclude Russia and Japan from the talks, limiting participation to the United States, China, and the two Koreas, which angered Russia.
Russia observed the former US President’s departure from the strategy of his former National Security Advisor, John Bolton, who favored the use of military force to eliminate the North Korean nuclear program, and his leaning towards the opinion of his strategic advisor, Steve Bannon, who opposed military action or an airstrike on Pyongyang. President Trump had held three summits with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in 2018-2019. Russian President quickly extended an invitation for Kim Jong Un to visit Russia. However, Kim Jong-un hesitated, suspicious of Russia’s intentions and motives in leveraging the Korean issue to exert pressure on and blackmail the Trump administration, gain some benefits in Ukraine, and have some sanctions on Russia that had burdened the Russian economy rescinded.
Kim Jong Un met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping four times between March 2018 and April 2019. He also met with South Korean President Moon Jae-in three times during the same period. However, he refused to meet with Putin until April 2019, after the Russian President insisted on meeting him. Kim Jong Un then boarded his private train and met with President Putin in the city of Vladivostok for five hours on April 25, 2019.
The following factors characterized the geopolitical environment at that moment:
President Trump excessively utilized economic tools in the political sphere by imposing massive tariffs and duties on steel and aluminum imports from China (25% and 10%, respectively) and imposing additional tariffs worth $300 billion on other Chinese imports to the United States. The European Union also faced tariffs from Trump.
Trump restructured the fossil fuel sector, leading to a decline in oil and gas prices to $25 – $40 per barrel of Brent crude, followed by a slight increase, reducing Russia’s crude oil revenues.
Additionally, Trump renegotiated previous trade agreements with US partners, such as the NAFTA agreement with Canada and Mexico, the free trade agreement with South Korea, and withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement.
President Trump heavily conflated economics with geopolitical and strategic matters, causing turbulence in the global geopolitical environment and escalating economic conflicts with China, Russia, and others.
China sought to leverage its historical ties with North Korea to exert pressure on the United States and gain advantages in trade negotiations with then-US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.
Similarly, Russia aimed to use its relationship with North Korea to exert pressure on the United States and wield it as a bargaining tool in negotiations with Washington.
When North Korea saw China and Russia pursuing their interests and using the North Korean nuclear program as a bargaining chip in their negotiations with Washington, Pyongyang decided to engage in direct talks with the United States. Thus, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met with President Trump in June 2018 in Singapore.
The North Korean leader did not allow either China or Russia to exploit his country’s nuclear program in negotiations with Washington. This remained the case until the worldwide outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. Subsequently, Russia launched its military campaign in Ukraine in February 2022. Russia found itself drained by the military conflict, depleting its military capabilities and resources. Some of its ammunition was nearly finished, and its military-industrial complex struggled to replenish the weapons and ammunition consumed by the war. St the same time, Iran faced difficulties in supplying Russia with military equipment, especially UAVs. Russia looked to North Korea to procure some ammunition, particularly heavy 155mm artillery shells, of which the Russian army suffered severe shortages. The Ukrainian army has been pushing its counterattack to break through Russian defensive lines in the south and east for months.
The second summit between Russian President Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un took place in the same city of Vladivostok on September 13, 2023, in a different geopolitical environment from that of 2019.
In 2019, neither Russia nor China were struggling strategically; pressure was rather confined to the realm of economics, which Trump had pushed to the extreme.
Today, the United States and its allies have effectively cornered China, Russia, and North Korea strategically, with Russia struggling greatly in its war on Ukraine. The United States and its allies have established three strategic belts surrounding China, encompassing the Pacific and Indian Oceans (Click for more). Furthermore, the United States formed an alliance with Japan and South Korea for the first time since the Camp David summit in July 2023 between US President Joe Biden, South Korean President Yun Suk-yeol, and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. This followed the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) between Washington and Seoul in April 2013, which stipulated the transfer of some sovereignty over the US nuclear weapons when deployed in South Korea, implying shared nuclear responsibility. For the first time since 1992, Washington also sent a nuclear submarine to South Korea along with B52 and B1B strategic bombers and aircraft carriers and conducted several joint naval and aerial exercises with South Korea and Japan, which alarmed and angered North Korea.
The current geopolitical environment drives China, Russia, and North Korea towards strategic cooperation and establishing an objective alliance dictated by on-ground realities.
Russian President Putin honored North Korean leader Kim Jong Un with a warm reception, and they discussed establishing an alliance for 100 years.
Russia can supply North Korea with petroleum, gas, grains, and other food supplies it needs. Furthermore, Russia can provide various types of Sukhoi and MiG aircraft due to North Korea’s weak air force and its need for satellite technology. North Korea has failed to launch a satellite into orbit and faced setbacks in its June 2023 test. Additionally, Russia can supply modern submarines to North Korea.
In return, North Korea can supply Russia with various types of ammunition, from heavy field artillery to tank shells, mortar shells, and others needed by Russia on the battlefield in Ukraine.
United States’ threats of imposing sanctions on Russia and North Korea will not prevent them from concluding arms deals.
However, if the current geopolitical environment changes, can North Korea be assured that Russia does not return to its 2016 and 2017 behavior when Russia sought to pursue its interests with the United States and the West and refrained from exercising its right to veto the United Nations Security Council resolutions against South Korea?
As mentioned at the beginning of the article, the statement of Muhammad bin Abdullah to Abu Ja’far al-Mansur during his reign, perhaps the North Korean leader can ask Putin about his promise to Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko not to harm the leader of the “Wagner” group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, if he seeks reconciliation with him. Alternatively, he might ask him about his promise to Prigozhin not to kill him, about his denial of his intention to invade Ukraine before February 2022, or about his commitment to former Russian President Boris Yeltsin to follow in his footsteps in governance when he entrusted him with the matter, and many other instances where Putin did not keep his word.
And perhaps President Putin also doubts the promises of Leader Kim Jong Un, be they like his promise to his aunt’s husband, Jang Song-thaek, who paved the way for Jong Un’s rule, only to be killed by the latter in 2013.
Putin might also have doubts knowing of Jong-un’s promise to his half-brother, Kim Jong-nam, who was assassinated in Kuala Lumpur in 2017, or about his promise to the Korean Army chief of staff Ri Yong-gil, whom he killed in 2016, and who was the comrade of his grandfather, Leader Kim Il-sung.
As the geopolitically strained environment brings together China, Russia, and North Korea in an informal alliance, their interests may diverge when each country pursues its own interests in negotiations with the United States. At that point, each party may break its commitments to the others.
[1] Tareekh al-Islam, al-Mu’arrikh al-Dhahabi, Vol. 4, p. 13, Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyah – Lebanon – Beirut – 2005.
[2] https://www.reuters.com/world/russias-lavrov-says-situation-has-changed-since-north-korea-was-hit-by-un-2023-09-13/
[3] https://ria.ru/20171225/1511547406.html