Ian Garner
A terror is stalking Europe. That, at least, is the impression you get from Kyiv. As Andriy Yermak, head of the country’s office of the president proclaimed, a new “axis of evil” is forming right across the planet, developing into a thoroughgoing military alliance that “challenges democracies and the world order”. And certainly, you can understand his fears to a point. North Korea, after all, is apparently planning to deploy some 10,000 troops to bolster Russia’s war effort, even as Pyongyang may now be supplying half of Moscow’s artillery shells.
Yet if a June 2024 agreement between the countries is certainly worrying, especially when dovetailed by Chinese sabre-rattling in the Pacific, the West is facing less an axis of evil than of convenience. The truth is that Vladmir Putin is deeply reliant on Kim Jong Un — and the help he’s getting from the hermit kingdom is basically a sign of weakness, not strength.
The sudden appearance of North Koreans in their country was unsurprisingly greeted by alarm in Kyiv. And considering how the conflict is going, Yermak’s dramatic language surely makes sense. Over the last few months, after all, the Russians have made grinding gains right across Ukraine, sometimes advancing as much as a kilometre a day and threatening strategically significant cities like Pokrovsk. To an extent, meanwhile, the recent alliance between Moscow and Pyongyang reflects a long-standing amity. The countries have enjoyed generally warm relations since Putin’s ascension to the presidency 25 years ago. Among other things, Pyongyang played host to one of the president’s first state visits abroad, when he hailed the Soviet army’s special role in “liberating” North Korea from Japanese occupation in 1945.
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