Russian Duma ratifies military agreement with North Korea

MADRID 24 Oct. () –

The Lower House of Russia’s Parliament, the State Duma, ratified this Thursday the association agreement signed in June with North Korea and which has given rise to an apparent intensification of military collaboration between Pyongyang and Moscow with the deployment of North Korean troops. on Russian territory.

The Russian Government has justified this alliance by claiming that it is not an offensive pact, but a defensive one. Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko has insisted in the parliamentary debate that it derives from the “alarming” political and military trends at a global level.

The president of the Duma Foreign Affairs Committee, Leonid Slutski, has also focused on the “current geopolitical situation” to advocate expanding cooperation with the Kim Jong Un regime, “based on the principles of mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity and non-interference in internal affairs,” the Russian agencies report.

The agreement, however, provides for mutual military assistance “in the event that one of the parties is attacked by any State and is in a state of war”, an ambiguous consideration that is worrying in view of the Russian military invasion of Ukraine and the escalation of tensions on the Korean peninsula.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed this symbolic agreement in June, under which Russia now hosts North Korean military personnel. South Korean Intelligence estimates that there are already 3,000 troops deployed – with the goal of reaching 10,000 in a few months – and fears that they could participate directly in the offensive in Ukraine.