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Amidst the violence of Russia’s military operations within the Republic of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, head of the majority United Russia Party which has held a monopoly on power in Russia ever since the collapse of the USSR, and President of the Russian Federation, is seemingly looking to old allies of the Soviet Union for geopolitical relations, and even perhaps assistance in his Ukrainian endeavor, an endeavor that has consistently proven time and time again a failure of Russia, and a matter of national humiliation.
A top diplomat of the United States of America, utilizing the extensive intelligence network of the American intelligence apparatus, recently reported that President Vladimir Putin plans to meet with Supreme Leader of North Korea Kim Jong-Un. The two leaders, effectively dictators of their two nations, with the Kim family being the sole leaders of North Korea ever since the establishment of North Korea with Kim Il Sung as Supreme Leader back in the 1940s. Putin, seeking aid in his doomed war with Ukraine, is seemingly reaching out to anyone he can.
Relations between Russia and North Korea date back to the cold war, where the Soviet Union propped up the North Korean state as a buffer to the capitalist South Korea established by the United States. Upon the outbreak of the Korean War, the Soviet Union aided North Korea in its invasion of the south, an invasion which saw North Korea nearly entirely defeated, until the intervention of the People’s Republic of China in the conflict. Since the establishment of an indefinite truce, North Korea became the site of a “battle of influence” between the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China following the Sino-Soviet split.
Even with the collapse of the USSR, that competition for influence has not ended, and yet, with Russia and China strengthening ties and improving relations in order to counter rising American influence, it has perhaps stagnated. Now, it seems that as Russia attempts to restore its former power in Eastern Europe, it has invoked those old connections, even in a seemingly insignificant country like North Korea.
The expected topics of discussion are strengthening economic ties, deterring American influence and interference, as well as an expected arms deal as Russian equipment storages run increasingly dry. Yet, as the war rages on, and tensions heat up in this new cold war, one can only wonder what is yet to come.
