Kim Jong-un deepens Russia ties, gains power through Ukraine war

Kim Jong-un turned Russia’s isolation after its invasion of Ukraine into leverage, cash and military reach. By the time Vladimir Putin traveled to Pyongyang on June 18-19, 2024, for his first official visit in more than 20 years, the two leaders had signed a comprehensive strategic partnership treaty that included mutual-defense language and marked a sharp rise in their military alignment.

North Korea’s gains were concrete. Pyongyang supplied Russia with artillery shells and missiles as Moscow fought a grinding war of attrition in Ukraine, and some Russian artillery units ended up firing ammunition that came from North Korea for a majority of their shots. In parts of 2024 and 2025, North Korean shells accounted for roughly 50% to 100% of the rounds used by some Russian units, a scale that helped Russia sustain the battlefield pace Ukraine has struggled to match.

The relationship expanded from ammunition to manpower. Western officials said North Korea began sending troops to Russia in the fall of 2024, and later estimates put the deployment at about 14,000 to 15,000 soldiers, including replacement forces sent after losses. That meant Kim was no longer just supplying weapons from afar. He was putting North Korean personnel into a war that has become central to Russia’s military strategy.

The diplomatic payoff was just as important. In March 2024, Russia vetoed the extension of the United Nations Panel of Experts that monitored sanctions on North Korea, weakening international oversight at the same moment Pyongyang was being accused of violating those sanctions through arms transfers to Moscow. United Nations officials said allegations of ballistic-missile and ammunition transfers from North Korea to Russia violated Security Council resolutions and were being used to support Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

For Kim, that mix of military support and diplomatic protection has widened his room to maneuver. Analysts have warned that the Moscow-Pyongyang alignment could help North Korea advance its nuclear weapons program, strengthen Kim’s hand at home and abroad, and further globalize the war. For the United States and its allies, the result is a more capable adversary: one with fresh battlefield experience, stronger ties to a nuclear-armed patron and a clearer path around the pressure that once tried to isolate it.