The West thought Kim Jong Un was trapped. Then came Putin

On the surface, this might look like yet another routine diplomatic event. However, in international politics, one must read the background rather than simply count the meetings. Just a few years ago, relations between Pyongyang and Moscow were not nearly this close. For a long time, the center of North Korea’s diplomacy was China. While Russia maintained a steady role on Korean Peninsula issues, North Korea-Russia ties were not considered a variable capable of shifting the dynamics of Northeast Asia. The war in Ukraine, however, severely disrupted this balance. As the war prolonged, Russia began to find itself increasingly isolated…