For decades, the default assumption in Asian geopolitics was simple: if you wanted to understand North Korea, you watched Beijing. China was the lifeline, the supplier of food, fuel, and diplomatic cover that kept the Kim regime alive. That assumption is now under serious pressure. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow and Pyongyang have built a relationship so dense with military cooperation, treaty obligations, and technological exchange that analysts are asking a question that would have seemed far-fetched just five years ago: is Russia edging out China as Kim Jong Un’s most important partner?. The answer is not straightforward. But the evidence of a structural shift
Russia’s unexpected influence in North Korea
The modern Russia–North Korea partnership did not emerge overnight. It was assembled piece by piece, with each escalation of the Ukraine war prompting a deeper layer of engagement between Moscow and Pyongyang.
The starting point was ammunition. Pyongyang began deepening its military cooperation with Moscow after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, starting with North Korean shipments of artillery shells. Till November 2026, North Korea had sent around 6.5 millions of artillery shells and other munitions to Russia. But what began as a transactional arms deal rapidly evolved into something far more consequential. Following the Russo-North Korean summit in September 2023, North Korea began providing large-scale military assistance to Russia, reportedly sending 20, 0000 containers of weaponry by October 2024. These containers mainly contain artillery shells, short-range missiles and anti-tank missiles.
The scale of the munitions transfer is staggering. According to the May 2025 estimates, North Korea supplied Russia with at least 100 ballistic missiles and as much as 9 million rounds of ammunition to support various weapons systems in 2024 that were launched into Ukraine. Ukraine’s own intelligence estimates placed the artillery shell count even higher at 10 million.
In return, Pyongyang is receiving what it has always wanted most, advanced military technology. Technical cooperation was particularly evident in space vehicle development, aircraft, anti-air missile systems, and unmanned aerial vehicles. North Korea’s May 2024 reconnaissance satellite launch featured a new kerosene-liquid oxygen engine, presumably based on Russian technology. Russia also transferred around 5 attack and 1 reconnaissance drone to North Korea, allowing Pyongyang to reverse-engineer them for its domestic drone program. More alarmingly, report states that Russia is believed to have provided North Korea with air defense equipment, anti-aircraft missiles, and advanced electronic warfare systems. General Xavier Brunson, U.S. Forces Korea Commander, testified before Congress in April 2025 that Russia is expanding sharing of space, nuclear, and missile-applicable technology to North Korea, and that Russia’s expanded cooperation will enable advancements of North Korea’s WMD program across the next three to five years.
The military entanglement culminated in human lives. Since the initial deployment in late 2024, North Korea has dispatched a total of more than 20,000 troops to Russia, primarily to the Kursk region. North Korea’s losses alone in Kursk Oblast totaled about 6,000 troops killed or injured and according to South Korea’s National Intelligence Service despite those casualties the North Korean military achieved the results of acquiring modern combat tactics and battlefield data, as well as upgrading its weapons systems with technical assistance from Russia.
The New Axis Emerging in Northeast Asia
The deployment of troops and missiles tells only part of the story. What makes the Russia–North Korea relationship qualitatively different from anything that came before is the formal treaty architecture that now underpins it.
Putin’s June 2024 visit to Pyongyang appeared to restore elements of the Soviet Union–DPRK military alliance that had lapsed following the Soviet collapse in 1991. Article 3 of the new Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty calls for each side to “immediately provide military and other assistance by all of one’s means available” in the event either side is put in a state of war by an armed invasion. This is the first mutual pact between Pyongyang and any major power since the Cold War era. Article 10 of this treaty also advocates cooperation in nuclear energy and space technology in the treaty.
Russia’s motivations are clear in the short term. It needed artillery shells to sustain a war of attrition in Ukraine, and North Korea had millions of them. But Moscow’s strategic incentives extend beyond the battlefield. Initially viewed as a tactical relationship with North Korea providing ammunition to Russia in return for food, energy, and military technology, the partnership now appears to be evolving into a strategic alliance. For Russia, a militarily stronger North Korea in northeast Asia is a useful long-term irritant to the United States and its allies South Korea and Japan, tying down American strategic attention and resources in the Indo-Pacific.
Russia has also moved to insulate North Korea from international pressure. In March 2024, Russia voted against the renewal of a UN expert panel charged with monitoring sanctions implementation. This was a decisive act, effectively dismantling one of the few multilateral mechanisms capable of documenting weapons transfers between the two countries. Russia did not merely become North Korea’s partner; it became its shield.
Did China lose its grip on Pyongyang?
Despite the dramatic headlines, anyone declaring China’s influence in North Korea is reading the data selectively. The economic reality remains brutally lopsided in Beijing’s favor.
China amounts to around 95 percent of North Korea’s annual foreign trade and 85 percent of North Korea’s exports. Despite its pivot to Russia, North Korea’s economic dependence on China has not meaningfully reduced. China’s trade figures with North Korea have actually grown in absolute terms, two-way trade between China and North Korea in 2025 rose 25 percent from the prior year to USD 2.73 billion, close to the USD 2.79 billion recorded in 2019 before the pandemic disrupted border activity. China still remains the source of virtually all of North Korea’s fuel, a large share of its food imports, and the currency of its limited external commerce. Russia cannot replicate this on any meaningful timeline.
Beijing also remains uneasy about the growing Moscow–Pyongyang partnership. Upgrading relations with Russia could help North Korea reduce its dependence on China, and China may be uneasy with the new partnership between Russia and North Korea. But given North Korea’s greater economic and other ties to China, there likely are limits to how far North Korea would go to wean itself from reliance on Beijing.
China’s discomfort is visible in its behavior. Unlike Russia and North Korea, Beijing has not signed a mutual defense treaty with Pyongyang in the current era. China has been more restrained than Russia or North Korea, withholding lethal weapons and troops from the Ukraine conflict, even as its unmatched dual-use exports which grew from 30 percent to 60 percent between 2021 and 2023, alongside economic support have been crucial to Russia’s war. China is running a parallel calculation: supporting Russia economically without being drawn into security entanglements in northeast Asia that it cannot control.
Conclusion
What has changed is not China’s grip on Pyongyang’s economy, that remains near-total, but China’s grip on Pyongyang’s strategic decision-making. Kim Jong Un is no longer a leader who must seek Beijing’s approval before making bold moves. He sent troops to Russia’s war without Chinese endorsement. He tested missiles, signed a mutual defense pact, and built a new patron relationship, all while maintaining the Chinese economic lifeline. This is a North Korea that has learned to play two major powers off each other.
But in the economic domain, China’s position remains structurally irreplaceable. With 95 percent of North Korea’s external trade still running through Beijing and China–DPRK trade rebounding to near pre-pandemic highs in 2025, the idea that Russia has supplanted China in any holistic sense overstates what the evidence supports. What has actually occurred is a rebalancing. North Korea has acquired a second pillar. It is more autonomous, more militarily capable, and more geopolitically consequential than it was three years ago. The Russia–North Korea alliance has shifted the regional power balance not by diminishing China, but by adding a new axis in northeast Asia that neither Washington, Seoul, nor Tokyo had factored into their long-term strategic planning. That, arguably, is the more important story.
