Russia, Ukraine, and the two Koreas: How east Asian powers are influencing Europe’s security

Which nation is Russia’s most significant military partner in its war with Ukraine? Speaking at a conference in Kyiv in September, Ukraine’s military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov gave a clear, if perhaps unexpected, answer: North Korea. Or, as Budanov put it: “North Korea would be first. Then there is no one for a long time, and then everyone else.”
 
The scale of North Korean aid to Russia remains striking. Since the war began, supreme leader Kim Jong Un has dispatched an estimated 6m artillery shells, providing Vladimir Putin with a clear battlefield advantage. Yet Budanov’s claim highlights a broader development in which both North and South Korea are playing an ever-more strategically significant role in European security affairs. Pyongyang’s importance was underlined in June when Putin visited to seek further weapons. Meanwhile, Seoul has sent aid to Ukraine and joined economic sanctions against Moscow. To respond to the Koreas’ growing role in the war, Europeans need a new approach. Firstly, this means focusing more energy on tracking and responding to new threats emanating from the intensifying North Korea-Russia partnership. Secondly, it requires the construction of a deeper, counterbalancing security partnership with South Korea.

Defence agencies in South Korea have tracked around 13,000 shipping containers in transit from North Korea to Russia, capable of delivering up to 6m artillery shells, mostly in exchange for shipments of food. At least a dozen short-range ballistic missiles have been transferred as well, including Pyongyang’s most sophisticated short-range ballistic missile, the Hwasong 11. Putin’s trip North Korea, the first by a Russian leader in more than two decades, aimed to ensure this supply continues. The two leaders also signed a new quasi-alliance security pact, similar to one that existed during the cold war, which includes a mutual defence provision.

At one level the sight of Putin and Kim arm in arm smacked of Moscow’s desperation. With so few international friends, Putin was forced to turn to a global pariah state to help his war effort. Yet the trip was viewed as a success in Russia, and will likely lead to fresh supplies of arms. The visit was a diplomatic triumph for Kim too, as the arrival of a major world leader such as Putin acted to bolster his regime’s legitimacy with domestic audiences in particular. The Ukraine war has helped North Korea more generally, allowing Kim to play Russia off against China, thus reducing his previous near-total dependence on Beijing.

South Korea’s strategic importance to Europe is also growing rapidly. President Yoon Seok-yeol’s administration has sought to elevate his country’s profile since winning power in 2022. Security ties between Seoul and both the European Union and NATO have deepened. Having become the first South Korean leader to travel to a NATO summit, Yoon is now a regular attendee. In 2023, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, went to Seoul to push for a closer partnership during the 10th EU-South Korea bilateral summit.

Perhaps most importantly, South Korea is now a significant European weapons supplier. Especially striking was a $14 billion arms deal unveiled by Poland in 2022, the largest sale by value in South Korean history. This partnership could soon be expanded at sea, as a South Korean company bids to build four submarines for Poland. Elsewhere, smaller sales have been agreed with Estonia, Finland, Norway, Romania, and others.

So far, this improved relationship has not extended to supplying weapons to Ukraine directly, a step from which Seoul has demurred for fear of Russian diplomatic retaliation. But Yoon’s administration did at least threaten to reverse the policy this summer, as a signal of its displeasure over Putin’s Pyongyang visit. South Korean weapons have played an underappreciated role as a backstop to Western deliveries to Ukraine too. In 2023, for instance, Seoul reached a deal to send half a million 155mm shells to the United States, allowing Washington to free up deliveries of its own.

This growing role of the two Koreas in European security illustrates an increasing interplay between the European and Asian strategic theatres more generally. Asian nations are, often for the first time in history, seeking to shape the European security order, a development noted by Indian thinker Raja Mohan. “Unlike in the imperial era, when the decisions on using the colonial resources were made in the European chancelleries, the Asian states are now able to make choices that shape the balance of power in Europe,” as Mohan puts it. China is the most high-profile example, via its significant non-military support for Russia. But North Korea is arguably the most influential. For now, Seoul’s support for Kyiv remains indirect, but seven decades after the end of the Korean war, the North and the South find themselves on opposite sides of a hot war some 7,000 kilometres from home.

Viewed from Europe, the risk is that the current partnership between Russia and North Korea will now strengthen. The volume of weapons sent to Russia could increase. Their quality could rise too. Some shells delivered by Pyongyang have been reported to be in poor condition, but Putin’s recent visit likely involved demands for better munitions. Going the other way, Russia could decide to share advanced military technologies with Kim’s regime in areas ranging from satellites to submarines, improving North Korea’s conventional military capability and potentially destabilising not just the Korean peninsula but north-east Asia more broadly. Russia’s partnership poses further clear nuclear proliferation risks too, given Kim’s desire to enlarge and advance his rogue nuclear programme – an important consideration for European security.

Deeper military cooperation between Russia and North Korea therefore risks both escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula and worsening battlefield conditions in Europe. The significance of imported North Korean ammunition is only likely to intensify during this coming winter, as the war enters a critical period with Russian attacks on Ukraine’s eastern flank. The need to develop new policies to respond was underlined recently by Jens Stoltenberg, NATO secretary-general. “North Korea is providing an enormous amount of, in particular, ammunition to Russia,” Stoltenberg said. “That’s also reason why it is important to continue to have severe sanctions on North Korea, and also reason why NATO has stepped up further the cooperation we have with our Asia Pacific partners, [which] includes South Korea”.

For Europe, this means taking concrete measures to understand and engage with the threats emanating from the North Korea-Russia partnership. The most obvious route to do this is to engage more closely with South Korea, deepening existing partnerships while investing in shared diplomacy and intelligence. Accelerating the development of a planned new security and defence industry partnership with South Korea should therefore be of high priority for Andrius Kubilius, the EU’s recently appointed first defence commissioner. As European countries boost their military spending, Korean companies can play an important role in plugging holes in defence and industrial capabilities. Kubilius recently suggested that all Europeans should seek to stockpile ammunition and other supplies, for instance, an area where Korean manufacturers are well placed to help. More generally, European leaders should continue to encourage South Korea to supply weapons to Ukraine directly. So far Seoul has been unwilling to take this step. But its alarm over the growth of Russia’s partnership with its northern neighbour, and its own recognition of the strategic relationship between itself and Europe, means that it may ultimately cross this red line.