North Korea is now taking up more space between Russia and China

There is no longer any way to separate Moscow from Pyongyang, and to stop Russia one must stop North Korea, and vice versa. Awareness of this codependent relationship is beginning to take hold more and more even at the Blue House, the presidential palace in Seoul – the very place where, until recently, there was still hope that the two scenarios – war in Europe and a potential war in Asia – could remain separate. The visit to Moscow by Choe Son Hui, North Korea’s powerful foreign minister, which concluded yesterday, only serves to reinforce the idea of a now unbreakable bond, ahead of a potential new visit to the Russian capital by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. 

Choe Son Hui is one of the most prominent figures in North Korea’s diplomatic elite; her career is characterised by a combination of privilege and personal merit. Born in Pyongyang in 1964, she was adopted as a child by Choe Yong Rim, a powerful figure within the ruling establishment (Prime Minister and Secretary-General of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly), who paved the way for her to receive an international education in China, Austria and Malta. She mastered English and developed an extraordinary familiarity with the Western world, which helped her in her career within the Party’s nomenklatura: she joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1988 as an interpreter, worked for years behind the scenes alongside North Korea’s leading negotiators, served as an interpreter at the Six-Party Talks on the nuclear issue, and even during Bill Clinton’s visit to Pyongyang in 2009; she then rose through the ranks of the Americas Department until, in 2022, she reached the top of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. According to several high-ranking North Korean defectors, Choe is listened to by Kim, including in the development of the relationships that are transforming North Korea from a pariah state into a key factor in global instability, playing a vital yet largely overlooked role in the international media.

Minister Choe’s visit to Russia is her first in around nine months, following her visit in October 2025, when she met both her Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, and President Vladimir Putin. Yesterday, Choe also met with the Kremlin leader, who praised bilateral relations and reiterated his “gratitude to the North Korean leadership and people” for the support offered in the war against Ukraine. Observers in Seoul view the meeting as a prelude to a potential visit to Moscow by Kim Jong Un, who has never set foot in the Russian capital and last met Putin in 2025 in Beijing, during the Victory Day military parade hosted by Chinese leader Xi Jinping. According to Tongil News, which specialises in inter-Korean news, North Korea is establishing itself as a central pivot in the axis stretching from Moscow to Beijing: a few days before Choe’s trip to Russia, a Chinese delegation led by Wang Huning, Chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference – China’s fourth most powerful man and a renowned and influential political scientist considered to be among Xi Jinping’s key advisers – flew to Pyongyang. Underlying this diplomatic manoeuvre, characterised by military and economic support, are solid convergences in international policy: all three countries, for example, have condemned the presence of Japan and South Korea at the NATO summit in Ankara. Last Thursday, even the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Andrei Rudenko, took the trouble to summon the South Korean ambassador in Moscow, Lee Seok-bae, to express to him “Russia’s concerns” regarding South Korea’s growing rapprochement with NATO, and also warned that if South Korea were to deploy the US Typhon missile defence system – which was already deployed by the United States in Japan in June – on its own territory, Russia would regard this as a threat to its own security and would respond “in a proportionate manner”.

In the upside-down world of regimes, protesting against a potential deployment in South Korea whilst North Korea is providing massive support in terms of troops, equipment and ammunition may well be perfectly consistent. It is a threat with tangible consequences: according to satellite images analysed last week by Radio Free Asia, over the past year or so North Korea has constructed at least 21 identical buildings, of the type known as ‘drive-through’, that is, with an entrance on one side and an exit on the other, at several small North Korean army bases just south of Kaesong – a few kilometres from the Demilitarised Zone and only about fifty kilometres from Seoul. These buildings are likely designed to house and maintain multiple rocket launchers or transporter-launcher vehicles. Yesterday, following his meeting with Choe, Lavrov flew to Manila for the ASEAN summit, where he will also discuss with other regional leaders the ‘risks’ associated with the ‘militarisation of the Indo-Pacific’.