EXPERT COMMENT
Pyongyang’s account of the Korean War remains a fabrication. But its rapidly growing strategic leverage is dangerously real.
There is a story told by some US officials that on the night of 25 April 2019, Kim Jong Un returned to his quarters in Vladivostok and drank two 750-millilitre bottles of Absolut Vodka. If that is true, the burn of the alcohol can scarcely have snuffed out the sting of the diplomatic slight he had just suffered.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, meeting Kim for the first time, had spent only a few hours with his North Korean guest before boarding a flight to Beijing. Kim was left to attend a memorial ceremony in Vladivostok alone, without his host. Kim was over two hours late to the event, remained for all of seven minutes, then retreated home to North Korea aboard his armoured train.
Seven years later, the power dynamic has been dramatically inverted, and the North Korean leader has Putin’s full attention. Russia now depends on Kim for artillery shells, ballistic missiles and, most importantly, combat troops to support its war in Ukraine.
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