Russia has become the most important enabler of North Korea’s nuclear program, according to a 38North assessment published May 13. International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi told Seoul that Pyongyang is probably adding a new uranium enrichment facility at Yongbyon. North Korea is estimated to possess roughly 50 nuclear warheads but still lacks a reliable ballistic missile delivery system. Under the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with Moscow, the DPRK has likely been receiving Russian weapons design and defense industrial technology — including nuclear submarine propulsion — in exchange for munitions and thousands of North Korean soldiers sent to fight in Ukraine. China is reportedly uneasy about the expanding cooperation.
North Korea and Russia Look Like a Nuclear Alliance Now
Hwasong-20 ICBM. Image Credit: North Korea State Media.
A long profile and analytical assessment published 13 May concludes that Russia has become an important – probably the most important – enabler of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s (DPRK) nuclear program.
Moscow’s involvement in this effort is now such that sanctions may have to be imposed on Russia as punishment for being complicit in the advancement of Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions.
The analysis comes from the DPRK military and political news site 38north, which draws on a wide range of contributors. They include several journalists, researchers, and other specialists who have spent significant time on the ground in the DPRK.
Several recent developments that are now being at least partially credited to the assistance of Russia point to an expansion of the isolationist state’s nuclear weapons development.
Speaking recently in Seoul, the Republic of [South] Korea (ROK), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi highlighted what he has characterized as “very serious” advances at the Yongbyon complex. These include what is being described as the “probable” addition of a new uranium enrichment facility.
HWASONG-18 ICBM North Korea. Image Credit: North Korean state media.
Estimates vary, but several sources estimate that Pyongyang currently has an estimated 50 nuclear warheads in its possession. What the Korean People’s Army (KPA) still supposedly has not accomplished, however, is the development of a reliable and accurate delivery system – namely a ballistic missile – that could hit a target while carrying one of these weapons.
Strategic Partners
The 38North assessment is that an acceleration of the DPRK’s nuclear effort was almost expected, given the levels of cooperation that Russian President Vladimir Putin has pledged to provide in interactions with the country’s supreme leader, Kim Jong Un.
Moreover, the nuclear sphere is not the only “stream” of activity in which the two nations are involved. It is only one of a set of cooperative endeavors.
In accordance with the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with Moscow, the DPRK has been taking advantage of a cornucopia of Russian weapons design and defense industrial technology.
These are “exchanges in kind” of capabilities from Russia as payment for large deliveries from Pyongyang of millions of rounds of different munitions, plus thousands of North Korean soldiers that were sent to fight with the Russian army against Ukraine.
That Russian capability has now enabled the KPA to expand the size and sophistication of its conventional arsenal and to acquire new delivery systems (i.e., ballistic missiles) and the launch platforms needed to make effective use of them.
The KPA personnel fighting in Ukraine have also benefited from the experience of being on the battlefield in Ukraine and seeing how Kyiv continues to develop new drone warfare systems and tactics.
“Since the invasion of Ukraine, the scale of cooperation has come to mirror that of a full-fledged military alliance, details about technology transfers and the full extent of cooperation remain opaque,” reads the 38North assessment. But it concludes that a “growing body of indicators, however, suggests that Moscow may be playing a larger role in Pyongyang’s military and nuclear modernization than previously understood, with significant implications for regional security and proliferation dynamics.”
Key Indicators
There is evidence of significant Russian assistance in several areas.
Some of the more relevant ones are:
-Advances in uranium enrichment
-Provision of assistance in developing nuclear submarine propulsion systems
-Russia shares its own expertise in utilizing intermediaries to complete illegal transfers
-An overall increasing level of Russian involvement in the DPRK’s nuclear research and development complexes
Russia Helping with Nuclear Submarines?
One of the most important developments – and one which is increasingly being discussed – is a possible transfer of a propulsion system for Pyongyang’s new nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine (SSBN).
This submarine will reportedly be capable of carrying at least three submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs)
The obvious implications of this one event are that the DPRK’s nuclear-powered submarine program could advance its development and eventual deployment timeline by several years. This could seriously complicate US and allied anti-submarine warfare (ASW) operations around the Korean Peninsula and in the Taiwan Strait.
The analysis also points out that there could be a future conflict of interest. Today, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is an ally of Moscow in its war in Ukraine.
However, Beijing is not at all keen to have a regime on its border that it, at times, has difficulty controlling, and with Russian assistance, is improving its nuclear arsenal.
Thus, the very real possibility exists that Beijing may have to oppose Putin’s continued military technical assistance to Pyongyang.
Moscow could find that not only Beijing but also the ROK, the US, and Japan would support throttling nuclear assistance and pressuring Russia to act accordingly.
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About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of Research at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two consecutive awards for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and a master’s degree from Miami University in Ohio, specializing in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.
