What is driving the recent revitalization of Russia–North Korea relations? What does each side hope to gain from this rapid rapprochement? What are its implications? In this article we consider the recent revitalization of the bilateral relations from a neoclassical realist perspective, with an emphasis on the leaders, focusing on the key current developments in the years 2022 to 2024. Historically, Russia under Vladimir Putin has seemingly never considered North Korea as a promising regional actor, and Pyongyang had long remained wary of getting too close to its Communist patrons including Moscow. On one level, this new chapter in the Russia-DPRK relationship appears to be driven by the alignment in the respective leaders' interests, especially in the military/security domain.
Kovsh et al. (Fri,) studied this question.