Russia and North Korea sign a mutual defense pact

What happened

Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed an agreement on Wednesday promising some form of mutual aid if either country faces foreign “aggression.” The pledge appears to be the strongest since the collapse of the Soviet Union ended a 1961 pact that required Moscow to intervene if North Korea was attacked.

Who said what

Kim said the agreement, signed during Putin’s first visit to North Korea since 2000, was the “strongest treaty ever” between Moscow and Pyongyang. Putin said the “breakthrough pact “does not rule out the development of military-technical cooperation” – a statement that analysts say could mean he will reward Kim’s flow of munitions for the invasion of Ukraine by destroying North Korea’s nuclear missiles and other advanced weapons. help improve.

The scope of the agreement was unclear. South Korean analyst Cheong Seong Chang told The Associated Press that it appears the two hermit states have “fully restored their Cold War military alliance.” Moscow and Pyongyang are declaring a “de facto alliance,” Hudson Institute security analyst Patrick Cronin told The Wall Street Journal, but “there is nothing fundamentally new about this relationship today that was not true before Putin’s visit.”

What now?