On June 19, Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Pyongyang, North Korea, on a special plane for a two-day visit. The outside world is highly concerned about Putin's trip, and they have speculated about what agreement Russia and North Korea will reach this time. South Korea, in particular, has directly warned Russia not to cooperate too closely with North Korea, so as not to cross the "red line" they have drawn.
Putin's visit to North Korea is a normal diplomatic move, but how can it become a threat in the eyes of South Korea? The reason is simple, South Korea and the West behind it are afraid.
As early as September last year, DPRK leader Kim Jong-un visited Russia by special train, during which he visited Russian military enterprises and advanced aerospace forces and reached a package of cooperation agreements. Less than a week after Kim Jong-un returned home, North Korea got rid of the embarrassing situation of successive failed launches of military reconnaissance satellites, gave its nuclear weapons the "eyes" of long-range strikes, and even went beyond the top of the White House to take clear satellite photos. To say that there is no technical support from Russia, no one believes it.
At the end of May this year, the DPRK once again fell into a bottleneck in the aerospace field, and the "Wanlijing-1-1" reconnaissance satellite failed to explode shortly after its launch due to an abnormality in the first stage of the rocket's propulsion. Now that Putin is visiting the DPRK for the first time in his new term, he will certainly not come to the DPRK empty-handed, and perhaps there will be cooperation to help the DPRK solve its difficult problems.
Of course, North Korea does not only know how to ask for it, and before Putin arrives in Pyongyang, North Korea's "big gift" to Russia is already on the way.
According to South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-hyo, North Korea has delivered a batch of containers capable of carrying 5 million rounds of artillery shells to Russia, and is currently crossing Siberia and the Arctic Ocean through two modes of transportation: railways and cargo ships, and finally arriving at the Russian-Ukrainian front line to assist the Russian army in combat.
Russia's own military production capacity has not been bad, especially after entering a state of war, the production capacity of artillery shells and missiles exceeds the total conventional production capacity of the 32 NATO countries, but this still cannot catch up with the consumption of the Russian-Ukrainian front.
Now that the United States and European countries have allowed weapons to aid Ukraine to strike on the Russian mainland, the Russian army must consider the security of the rear, and can only further promote the Russian-Ukrainian exchange of fire to ensure that the rear is within the "safe zone" and avoid the threat of Western missiles. Russia even directly said that how far the range of NATO's weapons to aid Ukraine is, how far Russia's security zone will be built.
According to outside speculation, the 5 million artillery shells of the DPRK were used in exchange for Russian reconnaissance satellites, tank technology, finished fighters and other technical equipment. If the two sides are satisfied, these cooperation will be "appetizers", and the follow-up support will definitely be even greater.
The reason for this is that North Korea's military production capacity has been plagued by shortages of raw materials and electricity, and has been operating at a low capacity of 30%. Now there is a major customer from Russia, and the DPRK military factory has been operating at full capacity since last year, fully supplying the 152 mm artillery shells, 122 mm artillery shells, rockets and tactical missiles needed by Russia.
Incomplete statistics show that by the end of 2023, North Korea has provided more artillery shells to Russia than the entire NATO combined, plus Russia's own production capacity, except for high-precision technology and equipment inferior to the West, Russia is fully equipped with the capital that continues to be consumed in conventional wars.
The West is concerned about the cooperation between Russia and North Korea, and is also worried that North Korea's assistance will change the situation on the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield, and South Korea's sense of crisis is even heavier, because it borders North Korea, and the equipment and technical cooperation between Russia and North Korea means that the two sides are further deepened in the military field.
In addition to drawing a red line warning against Russia, South Korea also hugged its thighs at the first time, and the country's Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Hong-gyun quickly contacted US Deputy Secretary of State Campbell, and the two sides reached a consensus that Russia-DPRK cooperation violated UN Security Council resolutions. Attempts are made to use this as an excuse to obstruct military cooperation between Russia and the DPRK.
In fact, South Korea came forward to warn Russia that the West would like to see the situation the most. As far as the current battlefield situation is concerned, although the West continues to provide a large amount of military equipment, as well as F-16 fighters and Russia to seize air supremacy, the war situation is still not optimistic. NATO has even begun to plan to limit the use of Russian nuclear weapons, as well as the strategic plan to send troops to Russia, indicating that the West's support for Ukraine under the conventional state has fallen into weakness, on the other hand, the Russian army's offensive is getting more and more fierce, once there is a major turning point in Kharkiv or the Donbas region, the West's investment in the past two years will be wasted.
As one of the Asia-Pacific proxies of the United States, South Korea and Russia have strengthened ties to affect the situation of the Russia-Ukraine war, and South Korea will inevitably come forward to stop it.
It is worth mentioning that after the phone call with US Deputy Secretary of State Campbell, South Korea also took advantage of its presidency of the Security Council to ask the Security Council to impose pressure and sanctions on the DPRK on the issue of "human rights." Although both China and Russia voted against it at the meeting, the insufficient number of votes still failed to prevent this old topic from entering the agenda of the Security Council, occupying more time for discussion on important issues.
Generally speaking, the cooperation between Russia and the DPRK is a typical example of "huddling together for warmth", but the influence caused by the cooperation between the two countries is too great, which has provoked a strong reaction from the Western camp. But as far as Russia and North Korea are concerned, strengthening bilateral relations is a mutually beneficial win-win situation, and no matter how much the United States and South Korea clamor about it, this will not change.
The method of "only allowing state officials to set fires and not allowing ordinary people to light lamps" is itself undesirable, and the United States has been tyrannical for decades, and it is time for others to give him some color.