Kim, Putin Near Completion Of First-Ever Road Link As Military Partnership Grows
North Korea and Russia are nearing completion of their first road bridge across the Tumen River, potentially giving the two increasingly close military partners a new overland route for moving goods across their 11-mile-long border.
North Korea and Russia are nearing completion of their first road bridge across the Tumen River, potentially giving the two increasingly close military partners a new overland route for moving goods across their 11-mile-long border.
The North Korean approach to the bridge is effectively finished, including a customs building and controlled entry point, while work on the Russian side remains underway on border facilities and the connecting road, Defense News reported Wednesday, citing half-meter-resolution Planet imagery. This may be a key example of a lasting relationship between Russia and North Korea, one analyst told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“The bridge suggests that the Russia-North Korea relationship is not confined to the short-term domain, not least the duration of the Ukraine War,” Edward Howell, an international relations lecturer at the University of Oxford, told the DCNF. “The speed at which it has been constructed — albeit with a few delays in the last few months — suggests an incentive on the part of both Moscow and Pyongyang to use the soon-to-be completed bridge for trade but also the transport of munitions and equipment into and out of Russia.”
However, this bridge does not mean Russia’s relationship with North Korea is guaranteed to last, another analyst said.
“This is a transactional relationship. North Korea provides arms, capabilities, and troops. Russia pays for this with hard currency, oil, foodstuffs, new weapons systems, upgrades to weapons systems, and technological support for developing systems,” Bruce Bechtol Jr., Professor of Political Science at Angelo State University, told the DCNF. “If the level of support that Russia needs from North Korea largely declines after the war in Ukraine is over, it is likely that the current high level economic and military support to North Korea from Russia will significantly decline … This is not the Cold War and North Korea gets nothing for free.”
The bridge sits at Tumangang, a remote border area that historically served as a rail hub for Soviet-era trade before activity declined following the collapse of the Soviet Union,