North Korea and Russia Just Signed a Massive New Military Deal – Here’s What It Means

On Wednesday, a new treaty to restore the military alliance between North Korea and Russia officially took effect. Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that the two nations exchanged ratification documents for the Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in Moscow. North Korea’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Jong Kyu and Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko signed the protocol for exchanging ratification documents.

The new North Korea-Russia treaty replaces the treaty signed on February 9, 2000, on friendship, good neighborliness, and cooperation.

KCNA hailed the new treaty as a legal framework elevating bilateral relations to a new strategic level. It safeguards regional and global security while fulfilling the ambitions of both countries’ leadership and their citizens.

The agency emphasized that this robust North Korea-Russia relationship would serve as a powerful security guarantee, promoting both nations’ welfare, easing regional tensions, and ensuring international strategic stability while accelerating the formation of a multipolar world order that is independent and just, free from domination and hegemony. North Korea’s recent large-scale deployment of about 11,000 troops to assist Russia in October appears to manifest this military cooperation under the new treaty.

This development marks the completion of all treaty enactment procedures, approximately six months after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and President Vladimir Putin signed it in Pyongyang on June 19. The comprehensive strategic partnership treaty specifies mutual military support in case either country faces war, effectively reinstating their military alliance.