Senior North Korean and Russian military officials have held fresh talks in Pyongyang, underscoring the two countries’ accelerating defense cooperation as Moscow’s war in Ukraine enters its fourth year and both regimes deepen their alignment against the West.
North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Friday that the discussions, led by Pak Yong Il, vice director of the Korean People’s Army’s General Political Bureau, and Viktor Goremykin, Russia’s deputy defense minister, focused on “expanding military cooperation” under what it called the “deepened bilateral relations” fostered by Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin.
The talks took place Wednesday in Pyongyang and were followed by a separate meeting Thursday between Goremykin and North Korean Defense Minister No Kwang Chol, according to KCNA.
While the report offered no details on agreements, analysts say the meetings mark another step in the two nations’ emerging strategic partnership — one that has rapidly evolved from symbolic solidarity into a tangible military alliance.
The timing of the talks is notable. Earlier this week, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) told lawmakers in a closed-door briefing that it had detected signs of recruitment and training in North Korea, possibly linked to further troop deployments to Russia.
The NIS estimates that around 15,000 North Korean personnel — including soldiers, engineers, and deminers — have been dispatched to support Russia since late last year, alongside shipments of artillery shells and ballistic missiles.
Seoul believes that an additional 5,000 military construction workers began moving to Russia in phases this fall, reportedly to help rebuild infrastructure in the Kursk region, where Russian forces have faced repeated Ukrainian drone and missile strikes.
When asked about the reports, South Korea’s Unification Ministry spokesperson Chang Yoon-jeong said Friday that Seoul was “closely monitoring the situation” but would refrain from “speculative assessments” about troop deployments.
The growing defense collaboration between Pyongyang and Moscow follows a high-profile summit between Kim and Putin in Vladivostok last year, during which the two leaders discussed arms transfers, technology exchange, and joint industrial projects.
U.S. and allied officials have since accused North Korea of supplying munitions and short-range ballistic missiles to aid Russia’s battlefield campaign in Ukraine, while Russia has reportedly provided Pyongyang with food aid, oil supplies, and advanced military technology.
The deepening partnership is fueling concerns in Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo that the two authoritarian states — both heavily sanctioned and internationally isolated — are forming a new axis of resistance to Western power.
During his visit to South Korea earlier this week, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth praised Seoul’s plans to increase defense spending and warned that “Pyongyang’s cooperation with Moscow represents one of the most dangerous military convergences in the world today.”
For Kim Jong Un, the alliance with Russia has broken years of diplomatic isolation and provided new leverage against the United States. For Putin, it offers badly needed ammunition and manpower for a protracted war — at a time when Western sanctions and battlefield losses are tightening the Kremlin’s options.
