Fiery friendship: What we know about Russia's secret treaty with North Korea

They saw you know who your true friends when you hit hard times. If you don't believe it's true, you just have to ask Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un.

Russia and North Korea signed back in June a far-reaching partnership agreement, marking their most robust diplomatic bond since the Cold War. But do you know what it exactly entails?

Details of the treaty between Moscow and Pyongyang have been kept under secret, so the long-term ramifications of the document have yet to be seen.

“Today, a new fundamental document was prepared which will lay the foundation for our relations for a long-term perspective”, declared Russian President Vladimir Putin, as quoted by Russian state agency TASS.

Meanwhile, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un affirmed that North Korea and Russia had a “fiery friendship” and that he was fully supporting Putin’s special military operation in Ukraine, AP News writes.

TASS describes how the treaty will take Moscow-Pyongyang relations to “the next level”, covering culture, education, agriculture and, more alarmingly, security.

Putin describes the defensive aspect of the treaty as “mutual assistance in the event of aggression against one of the parties”. However, the vagueness of the term “aggression” concerns many experts.

NPR explains that Moscow and Pyongyang had a treaty of mutual assistance during the Cold War, in which one country would defend the other in case of conflict.

This was replaced by a lower-level treaty in the year 2000, the last time Vladimir Putin visited Pyongyang. However, this new agreement seems to be a military alliance in all but name.

The Washington Post remarks that the United States and its allies have expressed concern that North Korea is providing ammunition to Russia, in order to keep fueling Putin’s war in Ukraine.

In exchange, Moscow would be giving food, tech, and economic aid to Pyongyang in order to maintain Kim’s regime in power.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken described Putin’s visit to North Korea as “desperate”, looking to “to develop and to strengthen relations with countries that can provide it with what it needs to continue the war of aggression that it started against Ukraine.”

What is true is that the two authoritarian leaders have found a partnership, built on their antagonism for the west and their increasingly isolated status from the rest of the world.

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