January 24, 2025: Russia and North Korea have been doing a lot of business since late 2022 when there were reports of Russia buying weapons from North Korea. Russia had invaded Ukraine in early 2022 and lost most of their modern tanks and many of their professional soldiers and officers. Ukrainian resistance was more intense than the Russians expected and after three years of fighting Russia has wrecked its military and economy trying to conquer Ukraine.

The invasion meant Russia was hit with harsh Western economic sanctions. From the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991 to Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine in 2014, the new Russian Federation had been able to import whatever it needed from Western Europe and, to a lesser extent, from the United States. That enabled Russia to reform, rebuild and revitalize its wrecked Soviet era economy. It was a mystery why Russia would throw it all that away by invading Ukraine.

The reality was that Russian leader Vladimir Putin had diplomatic, military and economic advisers who tended to tell Putin what they thought he wanted to hear rather than the truth. This worked in peacetime, but when it came to advice on invading Ukraine, Putin’s advisors were a disaster. Putin attacked thinking the Ukrainians would offer little resistance and the invaders would be in control of the capital Kyiv, which is close to the Russian border, within a week and then find pro-Russian politicians to form a new government that would do whatever Putin wanted.

Plans like these rarely work and the Russians failed spectacularly. So far Russia has lost over half a million soldiers dead or disabled. Over a million military age men fled the country to avoid army service in Ukraine. Avoiding military service became a national pastime. Having run out of Russians, Russia in desperation sought to hire men from other countries. This ran into opposition from the leaders of those nations and eventually Putin found a country that was willing to rent soldiers for an affordable price.

The 12,000 North Korean soldiers Russia obtained began arriving in October 2024. These soldiers received Russian uniforms and ID cards indicating that they belonged to a Russian Central Asian minority. Some of the North Koreans were Special Operations troops, who were there for special operations and kept an eye on the behavior of the North Korean troops in general and report regularly to the government back home. The North Korean troops were paid $2,000 a month, which was a fortune by North Korean standards. Most or all of that money was sent to the families of the soldiers, who were told if their son was killed or disabled, there would be large payments to the next of kin.

Then North Korean soldiers were trained to fight in the mountainous terrain of North and South Korea. Ukraine was largely flat, so the North Koreans required some additional training to accustom them to warfare in the generally flat Ukrainian terrain. Before the end of 2024 the North Korean soldiers entered combat to push the Ukrainians out of Russia. Since August 2024, Ukrainian troops had occupied territory in Kursk province, which is adjacent to the northeast border of Ukraine. So far, the North Korean have suffered hundreds of casualties and pushed the Ukrainians back a bit. This was the first time North Korean Army soldiers have been in combat since 1953. Special forces have conducted some raids into South Korea and killed South Korean officials overseas.

The details of what Russia paid North Korea for all the aid it has received since 2022 are not fully known. Until recently the aid was in the form of ammunition and heavy weapons. Payment was a combination of cash and commodities, especially food, which North Korea is always short of.

Russia and North Korea share a border with a railroad connection on it. That enables North Korea to send or receive goods via rail via the Trans-Siberian railroad or via ship to the nearby port of Vladivostok. All this trade is a needed bonanza for North Korea. The reality is that since the 1990s North Korea has had less of everything. That included its military, which has nearly a million troops. Military age North Korea men must serve six to nine years on active duty in the military

For years North Korean soldiers got less of everything including less food mainly because there was less to distribute. The North Korean economy was a mess, and although the government claims there is economic growth, there was not much evidence of this.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un didn't do all this by himself, as he had a small group of advisors he relied on a lot. This included his uncle, Jang Sung Taek, who was married to Kim Jong Il’s sister. Jang has long been a powerful government official and was believed to be quite wealthy. That's because Jang has a lot to say about how North Korea earns by legal or illegal means foreign currency. In a country so extremely poor, the man who controls the most money has a lot of power. Jang, at one point ordered house searches of families believed to be hoarding Chinese or American currency rather than, as the law demands, putting it in the bank. People do not want to put their foreign currency in the bank because the government pays you less for it and in worthless North Korean currency. The black market money changers give fair market value.

Jang understood how the North Korean economy really works and was trying to increase government control over the new economy. Yang and his wife had a lot more knowledge of, and experience with, the North Korea government and economy than their nephew Kim Jong Un and, for a while, they had his ear and trust. While the senior leadership makes a fuss and changes little, the situation continues to get worse up there. Food shortages grow and the threadbare economy sputters along in the face of energy shortages and growing unemployment.

Jang Sung Taek was executed in late 2013 for being too powerful and losing the trust of his nephew, Kim Jong Un. That’s another reason for getting out of North Korea anyway you can.