Yesterday marked the 72nd anniversary of the armistice that stopped the Korean War.

North Korea has decided to commemorate this occasion (which, as everyone should remember, did not actually end the war, but created a permanent stalemate that still exists to this day, despite North Korea’s insistence that they no longer hold to the armistice) in two ways. First, thanks to their “special friendship” with Vladimir Putin, North Korea is now allowing plane flights directly from Moscow.

Russia on Sunday opened a regular air link between Moscow and Pyongyang, a move reflecting increasingly close ties between the two countries.

The first flight operated by Russian carrier Nordwind took off from Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport carrying over 400 passengers. Russia’s Transport Ministry said there will be one flight a month to meet demand.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who visited North Korea’s new Wonsan-Kalma beach resort earlier this month to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, promised to encourage Russian tourists to visit the complex.

The resort, which can accommodate nearly 20,000 people, is at the center of Kim’s push to boost tourism to improve his country’s troubled economy.

North Korea has been slowly easing the curbs imposed during the pandemic and reopening its borders in phases. But the country hasn’t said if it would fully resume international tourism.

Regular flights between Russia’s eastern port city of Vladivostok and Pyongyang reopened in 2023 following a break caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Apparently, this is going to be much quicker than the passenger train that already connects the two capitals.

Obviously, most of the North Korean population can’t afford to take vacations to Moscow – and how many people would be allowed exit visas to leave, regardless? For Russians, I’m not sure one flight a month, all designed to visit ONE tourist “resort” in a country like North Korea will make it a destination hot spot. Also, if there’s just one flight a month, how are the tourists going to leave? Is that “vacation” supposed to be a month-long visit? Or will they be forced to take the train home – which leaves twice a month and the trip takes EIGHT DAYS to make? I have many questions about how all of this is supposed to work, but if North Korea is your only vacation option, I’d stay home.

As we know, the only North Koreans who get to leave the country these days are fighting for the Russian army in Ukraine, which has always been massively problematic on an international level. So far, it seems that the North Korean troops sent to fight for Russia have been doing two things – getting addicted to internet pornography, and dying. As of this last April, there were 4,700 casualties among the North Korean forces sent to Ukraine, with at least 600 of those being deaths. Kim Jong-un actually acknowledged that troops were dying in combat nearly a month ago.

Kim Jong-un has paid tribute to North Korean soldiers killed during Russia’s war with Ukraine, resting his hands on their repatriated coffins in a rare public acknowledgment that his armed forces have suffered fatalities in the conflict.

Photographs of the North Korean leader pausing in front of a line of half a dozen coffins draped in the country’s flag were displayed on a screen at a gala performance held on Sunday to mark the first anniversary of a military treaty between the North and Russia.

According to Ukrainian intelligence, North Korea is planning on sending many more troops.

North Korea is set to triple the number of its troops fighting for Russia along the front lines with Ukraine, sending an additional 25,000 to 30,000 soldiers to assist Moscow, according to an intelligence assessment from Ukrainian officials.

The troops may arrive in Russia in the coming months, according to the assessment seen by CNN, adding to the 11,000 sent in November who helped repel Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region. Around 4,000 of those North Korean soldiers were killed or injured in the deployment, according to Western officials, yet Pyongyang’s cooperation with Moscow has since bloomed.

The Ukrainian assessment seen by CNN says the Russian ministry of defense is capable of providing “needed equipment, weapons and ammunition” with the aim of “further integration to Russian combat units.” The document adds “there is a great possibility” the North Korean troops will be engaged in combat in parts of Russian-occupied Ukraine “to strengthen the Russian contingent, including during the large-scale offensive operations.”

There is also a report that North Korea will be sending thousands of “military construction workers” to help out as well. It seems that North Korea is doing quite a lot of “giving” in this relationship with Russia, and we have yet to see what Russia will be asked to do in return. Sending Russian tourists doesn’t seem like it will make up for hundreds dead and thousands injured (which will definitely put a crimp in Kim Jong-un’s baby-making demands). There will definitely be some expected “help” from Russia.

Maybe what North Korea will ask of Russia is reflected in the second way that they observed the anniversary of the armistice. Kim’s sister and resident ice queen Kim Yo Jong informed South Korea – who has made a few overtures toward the north after their new president took office – that they have zero interest in talking, so don’t even bother.

The influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un rebuffed overtures by South Korea’s new liberal government, saying Monday that North Korea has no interests in talks with South Korea no matter what proposal its rival offers.

Kim Yo Jong’s comments suggest again that North Korea, now preoccupied with its expanding cooperation with Russia, has no intentions of returning to diplomacy with South Korea and the U.S. anytime soon. But experts said North Korea could change its course if it thinks it cannot maintain the same booming ties with Russia when the Russia-Ukraine war nears an end.

“We clarify once again the official stand that no matter what policy is adopted and whatever proposal is made in Seoul, we have no interest in it and there is neither a reason to meet nor an issue to be discussed with” South Korea, Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried by state media.

North Korea has been shunning talks with South Korea and the U.S. since leader Kim Jong Un’s high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with President Donald Trump fell apart in 2019 due to wrangling over international sanctions. North Korea has since focused on building more powerful nuclear weapons targeting its rivals.

North Korea now prioritizes cooperation with Russia by sending troops and conventional weapons to support its war against Ukraine, likely in return for economic and military assistance. South Korea, the U.S. and others say Russia may even give North Korea sensitive technologies that can enhance its nuclear and missile programs.

It’s always interesting to see just how much power Kim Yo Jong has managed to gain and wield for herself, and that she is officially speaking on behalf of the goverment is definitely cementing the Kim family’s already iron grip on the country.

With Russia as their bestie, and currently indebted to Kim Jong-un for the additional troops, North Korea is definitely feeling free to thumb their nose (or flip the proverbial bird) at South Korea, while at the same time using Russia to deliver “warnings” to the United States, South Korea, and Japan that they better not gang up on North Korea. This alliance is quite a headache for the rest of the world, as North Korea is definitely helping to keep the Ukraine war going, and Kim Jong-un has about as much regard for his troops as Vladimir Putin does for his – that is, if they turn into cannon fodder, oh well, they’ll just send more.

President Trump is trying to get Putin back to the negotiating table in order to end the Ukraine war with the threat of sanctions. I hope that others at the State Department are recognizing that having the wild card of North Korea in Russia’s back pocket is likely prolonging the war as well. Driving a wedge between the two countries, now tied together in a mutual defense treaty that was signed during the Biden administration, is going to be extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, without a massive escalation at the front lines of the war – which is exactly what President Trump does not want. However, there are no good answers here, and the tighter ties between Russia and North Korea are no good for the rest of the world.

Featured image: Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un in 2024 via Kremlin.ru on Wikimedia Commons, cropped, CC BY 4.0