North Korea fights for Russia

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

0:43BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Nick, our colleague Anna Foster is in Ukraine this week. And when I heard you speaking to her on Tuesday's Today programme, she was there, you were in the studio here in London, and it really brought home, partly because she was describing it so well, the realities of the war and the fact that no one knows where this is going to end. There's a huge amount of diplomatic work going on between Washington and Moscow and Kiev. But essentially, we're in an attritional conflict. And 20 % of Ukraine seems to be Russian occupied. And no one knows where this is going.

1:17Yeah, sometimes people say, why do programmes like the Today programme need to send presenters out to places where there are correspondents? Yeah. And I think it's for this reason, isn't it? which is we've got some brilliant correspondents who can stand in Kiev and tell you what's happening there, and most notably James Waterhouse, but often our diplomatic correspondent James Landell is there too. You've got brave war reporters who go to the front line, but quite often you don't have the space, the time to reflect on what life is like for ordinary people on the front line in eastern Ukraine. And I thought to hear Anna visit a school underground, simultaneously capturing the horror of kids having to be educated in bunkers with barely a window, but also capturing that there's joy there, that these are kids having fun.

2:07And as she described it, there was still Easter paintings on the wall. Add something to honour understanding, add something to coverage. And the interview she did with the mayor of Kiev, the former boxer, Klitschko, didn't just matter. It wasn't just interesting. You know, it moved things. Yeah, big time. And it also gave us a sense of how, and one of the things that we've discovered this week is a sense of how what is going on between Russia and Ukraine is really a small, though hugely significant and ghastly, part of a much bigger conflict. And that's partly to do with the alliances that both those countries are in.

2:43Crumbling alliances in some cases, strengthening alliances in others. And we're going to speak to Anna, who's going to be joining us from Ukraine, but also we're going to be reflecting on something which wasn't completely 100 % confirmed until this week, but we do now know, which is the presence of North Korean troops in Russia and the clearest possible evidence that Russia, North Korea and some other countries are part of an alliance which is above all united by hostility to the West. So we're asking this week, what does it tell us about the changing global alliances that Kim Jong-un is willing to send his soldiers into, it's a horrific phrase, but it's a graphic one, the Russian meat grinder.

3:23Let's do it.

3:37Hello, it's Amol in the Today Podcast studio. And Nick also in the Today podcast studio. And we are joined by Anna, who is. Good morning, Anna. Where? I am sitting in our van in the car park of a roadside Ukrainian restaurant on the way to Kiev. And it looks like a castle. It's extraordinary. So you've come from? We've come from. So this morning we were in Dnipro because we're on the way out of Ukraine now. So this morning we were in Dnipro. We are going all the way to Kiev, which takes probably eight, nine hours. And then tomorrow we're going from Kiev all the way out of Ukraine to Poland. It is such a because you obviously can't fly in and out of Ukraine anymore.

4:20Haven't been able to. You know, Nick, this all too well and you still can't fly. So anything you ever have to do involves a really, really long road move. We can't get the train. The trains are still running, but we're driving. so it's a long, long road trip with dear colleagues as you can imagine we're having a fabulous time Well I was going to say Anna because before we talk about what's going on with the war you said we a couple of times who are you with? Who's the team you're out there with? So we've got Joe who's actually if you're watching the visualised version of this Joe is the one who's holding the camera so hello Joe we've got Laura who you both know who is an extraordinary producer everything member of the Today programme crew we've got Olga hello Olga who is Ukrainian.

5:03She works for the BBC. She used to work for the Ukrainian service. We've got James who is, at the moment, you know when people look a bit shifty, he's trying to hide around the back of the van. He is the one who's actually set up the equipment that I am speaking to you on. And then we've also got Chris, who is our high-risk advisor, and we've got Serhi and Sasha, and they are our drivers. It is a reminder. It sounds like an entourage, doesn't it? I was going to say, it is a reminder, though, which is to broadcast safely, as well as well, which you've done brilliantly this week, there's got to be quite a lot of people.

5:36Oh, a huge amount. And as you know, everything is so carefully controlled. Everything that we do, everywhere that we go, is planned in advance. We always have contingencies for different things. So, for example, last night, so I did today, yesterday morning, and we filmed some things, so I had a piece on the 10 o 'clock news last night, but there was a drone that went over our hotel it was quite low and quite close in Dnipro so we ended up having to go down into the shelter and and do the live from there I'm upsetting the security guard from the local supermarket on the way I think I think he thought we were trying to get in and steal his stock but we were just down because this is the thing it's so unpredictable you never quite know what is going to happen so you've got to be prepared for all of those eventualities, which we are.

6:24And when you went out there a few days ago, I assume you went out there after Putin announced his three-day ceasefire. What was the story you sort of, as it were, went in search of? And what's the story you found about this country that's at war? Well, the peg, if you like, we like a peg in journalism, don't we? And the peg was the fact that Donald Trump said, as you'll remember, in his election campaign to be US president, that he would have everything here solved. This war would be over within 24 hours. He had the negotiating skill to sort it out. And we've just had the 100 days of him in the White House.

6:59And he hasn't quite clearly. And we know that talks are going on with Russia and talks are going on with Ukraine. And sometimes it feels like they're moving really quickly. So when I arrived here, everything seemed to take a sort of accelerate and it looked like something might happen quite quickly and then it slows down again it really ebbs and flows but actually the thing that that I found and the thing that I think if you've listened to today that the programs that we've done from here is how difficult it's going to be to actually find a resolution because to just talk about a ceasefire is far too simplistic it's what that ceasefire would involve in terms of sacrifice on the Ukrainian side that really divides people here it's a really difficult and delicate issue it's going to be enormously difficult for President Zelensky and Ukraine's politicians to negotiate because whatever agreement they come to, if they do, it will not please everybody.

7:51And those people you met, those people you spoke to in Dnipro, in the east of Ukraine, by definition, are people pretty committed to their country, I would imagine, because they could leave. I mean, they could just say, we're heading west, we're going to try and get out if we can. they have already many of them paid a very heavy price for this war and therefore want something at the end of it they don't simply want to give in well quite you're exactly right and we spoke to soldiers who are fighting on the front line and their take on it was we are risking our lives every day for this so how do we just give land away it it makes a mockery of what we're trying to do but then i also met a family and tim who's 13 you might have heard him on the program the the day he was fabulous and his mum Natalia they actually left for a time at the start of the war they were refugees in the UK for a bit and then they returned again because they wanted to be at home in Zaporizhia where they are now so a lot of people have left but yes for the ones who stay they want an end to the war but they also don't want to concede Ukrainian land there's a particular stoicism as well you know you meet people out and about doing those really everyday things i was really struck when we went to um a beauty salon in zaporizia people were getting their hair done i was really they showed me the beauty room and there was a big sort of huge glass vase and it was filled to the brim heaping with um used botox needles because people are still going in very regularly and they're getting their botox and they're doing it for two reasons and one is to feel good about yourself because you know in the middle of all of this you've it's all about sort of trying to preserve your mental health and sometimes small things that make you feel good about yourself are a positive thing.

9:35But also they see it as supporting the local economy. If you're supporting your neighbour, if you're supporting their business, you know, the owner of the salon was showing me very proudly the blinds in the windows that he bought from a local supplier. So I think people see it as this interconnected network of support. And that's part of it as well. I thought you brilliantly captured this week that normality can continue in the face of horrific abnormality. But it is worth reminding people that what it's a couple of years ago since the siege of a city very near to where you were maria pole the documentary 21 days in maria pole which i've talked about on this podcast before i think is the single most shocking distressing piece of moving picture that i've ever seen possibly possibly as i say that i think of holocaust documentaries but it the very fact i even start that sentence is a is a sense of how horrific and people were evacuated from maripold to where you were in zapparicia weren't they those memories stuff still must be very strong very powerful oh they are extremely so and actually another thing which i and again one of the things i'm really pleased that we've done in this last week or so is is when you actually get to a place and talk to people and and to be able to reflect that more widely i didn't realize that so many people that we would meet and talk to are from those now occupied areas and they are they're living as close as they can but they can't live in those places but you talked about about Mariupol and we went to um the steelworks here uh Zaporizhstal sort of back in Zaporizhia and they call it the brother of Azovstal and that is a name that you'll recognize because that was the steelworks obviously in Mariupol that was besieged and when we and I've never been so deeply inside a steelworks before and they are otherworldly places it's like something from from Blade Runner you know that just the structure of it and it's you know you've got the hot metal and the sparks and the and the soot and these great towering platforms and to imagine the the urban warfare that was going on in there at the time of the siege of of Mariupol and the siege of Azovstal was just you know sometimes you look at something and the hairs go up on the back of your arms and you think I cannot imagine what it must have been to like to be in a place like that with a battle going on it's just extraordinary and as you rightly identify Nick as well those memories for people who particularly escaped at that time as well and I remember you know I was here three years ago speaking to people who'd left those places and they were describing you know seeing bodies by the roadside fleeing for their lives driving out with whatever they could just take in their hands sometimes their passport no more than that and those memories stay they they scar and life returns to what feels like a slightly more normal beat but the the war is always going on around you and and wars end especially modern wars and i end generally because of political rather than military uh solutions just on the politics of ukraine what's your sense speaking to people out there of how strong a position zelensky is in to try to negotiate some sort of peace whether it's mediated by america or not Oh, it feels really difficult.

12:51And what I think we also learned a little more deeply when we had Vitaly Klitschko on the programme, that interview that he did with today, that made headlines here in Ukraine and around the world as well, because he suggested that Ukraine might need to temporarily cede territory along the lines of this deal that's being proposed by the US, that that might be the only temporary way to some kind of peace. And that made huge waves. And he had to put out a clarifying statement. And his take on it was, you know, I'm not saying anything new. I'm not, he sort of used a Ukrainian phrase. He said, you know, I'm not discovering America.

13:28This is not a brand new thing. This is what people are thinking. But I'm articulating it. But it was because he was the most senior politician to have done that. I heard him do it on our program. It created these huge political waves because some people, some people do agree with him. A lot of people agree with him, but a lot of people think that there need to be red lines. But I think one overarching feeling that people have here is they do start to question the support from countries like the US. I think there's a lot of overt support from Europe, but people now are saying, look, if we're being pushed into doing this, is there the genuine level of support that we used to have and that we need to try and bring this to a close?

14:09But there's definitely no, as I said, actually, there's no answer that's going to please everybody. And you see that in the rough and tumble of politics here, which mirrors that, that you see anywhere else around the world, your country at war or not. Anna, safe home. Yeah. Get some lunch at your stop and get back on the road to Poland. Nick, I've got a chicken Kiev on order, which I will be enjoying when I finish speaking. Do you remember there was a great debate after the war began? Kiev. or Kiev Kiev or Kiev for the ticket never mind for the capital city it's it's well I ordered it as Kiev and you see that's the thing as well that the things that used to be pronounced with the Russian way even people's names here you know you need to sort of think about names of places names of people and how you pronounce them because all of that changed you're right so I'm going to enjoy my Kiev and I shall think about you both as I do it lovely safe trip Anna take care bye bye bye it's really interesting that isn't it And we forget that this is about culture and identity, not just about territory.

15:14And I was talking, oddly enough, to the president of Latvia on the programme the other day. Why? Because we were at the Pope's funeral trying to get a sense from the dignitaries of what the Pope's death meant to those many important visitors. But he raised this issue of territory in Ukraine. And he said, the thing you have to remember is that America never forced the Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, to give up their territory or their territorial claim, even as the Soviet Union marched in, as they occupied them, as they had control of them for decade after decade. The United States never said, no, no, no, you don't exist anymore.

15:58You're swamped by, you're owned by, you're the property of the Soviet Union. And he said the significance of that was, of course, when there was a chance to get the territory back, when the Soviet Union collapsed, we were able to point to that support from the United States and say, we still exist. The implication of what you're saying is that the West back then was united. And it's so interesting that now, once upon a time, what united the West was fear of Russia. But now fear of Russia is what's going to divide the West. Suddenly there is this split in the post-war Western alliance. Because everything you've just described is a time when America and the Baltic states were resolutely united.

16:39They were together. And you could guarantee, I mean, if you think about what Reagan, amongst others, said, or Eisenhower said about the Western alliance. that world temporarily if trump is only around for a short amount of time but not temporarily if trumpism rules in america that world is gone

16:57now let's turn to north korea and russia because south korean and western intelligence agencies have long suspected that north korean troops have been fighting alongside russia in kursk and now it's been confirmed hasn't it nick by both pyongyang and moscow remember kursk is a Russian region bordering Ukraine, which was the focus of a surprising curse by Ukrainian forces last year. A North Korean state news agency said the decision to deploy troops there was in accordance with a mutual defence treaty in which they committed to support each other if either country was dealing with aggression. Kim Jong-un is reported to have said, and I quote, they who fought for justice are all heroes and representatives of the honour of the motherland.

17:41And the Kremlin, which is quite friendly with North Korea, as we're about to discuss, cited Putin as saying the Korean friends acted guided by the sentiments of solidarity, justice and real camaraderie. We appreciate it a lot and are deeply grateful to comrade Kim Jong-un and the North Korean people. And our guest is Edward Howell, a fellow at Chatham House's Korea Foundation, a lecturer at Oxford University and author of North Korea and the Global Nuclear Order. Edward, welcome to the Today podcast. Thank you very much. It's very, very good to be here. It is eye-catching, this alliance between the North Korean and Russians.

18:15It's striking that it's now been confirmed. Is it possible to say how significant it is? In my view, this is very significant and poses a clear threat and challenge to international order as we know it today. It's interesting, Nick, that you use the word alliance. That's the word the North Koreans use to describe the relationship. And the word that the North Koreans have used ever since the two countries signed the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty last year. On the Russian side, OK, Russia prefers to use the word partnership, which perhaps highlights that Moscow at the moment might want to see if there's a little bit of room, a little bit of leverage it can have if it wants to step back a little bit.

18:59But the reason I think this is so significant and the reason I think not only this relationship, But the fact that the two countries have now openly admitted the existence of North Korean troops in aiding Russia's war, which we have known for many months, is that it highlights how, at least in my view, in the event of any conclusion of the Ukraine war, however the war ends, I think this relationship is likely to continue, even though it will, of course, not look the same. And what is the nature of that alliance stroke partnership? Is it about military cooperation and sharing troops and hardware and intelligence?

19:38Is it a feeling that basically they're ideological bedfellows with a common enemy in the West or NATO, whatever that enemy might be? Or is it basically that Kim and Vlad are mates? So the personalities of the leaders is, of course, very important here. We could also add Xi Jinping into this mix as well. But crucially, this relationship started out from a largely transactional perspective. Russia, at a time of need, needed artillery. North Korea has a large supply of artillery. The quality is slightly doubtful, one might say. But in terms of quantity, North Korea was able to provide Russia with a large quantity of artillery.

20:24This then evolved into the provision of ballistic missiles and now, as we know, nearly 14 ,000 troops. And so in my view, this relationship, whilst it started off being purely transactional, cash for munitions, now it's still transactional, but there are other layers to it. There's a strategic element and an ideological element. And for Kim Jong-un, as well as that cash, much needed, presumably he gets high-end technology and also status. High-end technology is what Kim Jong-un wants the most. He's getting food, he's getting cash, he's getting a supply of crude oil from Russia. That's all well and good.

21:06But North Korea ultimately wants advanced missile and military technology, re-entry technology. We saw Kim Jong-un inspect and oversee the testing of missiles from a new warship, a new destroyer. Just unpack that jargon, re-entry. Re-entry technology is an extremely advanced form of nuclear technology, of missile technology. And what it allows states to do is it allows you to launch missiles with multiple warheads. This is a real status symbol, as you've mentioned, Nick, of an advanced nuclear power. But this also highlights for North Korea that it wants to gain ultimate recognition as a de facto North nuclear state.

21:53North Korea has two goals, regime survival of the Kim regime and de facto recognition as a nuclear armed state. And it's using its relations with Russia to fulfil those goals. And you mentioned, Ed, in I think your first or second answer, Xi Jinping in this context as well. And you might also mention Iran, which has an alliance with these people. And I have this phrase, which I like to bang on about, about China, Russia, Iran and North Korea being the crinklies and this alliance of autocrats. To what extent do those countries themselves think, you know, we've you know, we're now part of this alliance?

22:26To what extent, to use the modern parlance, do they self-identify as part of a grouping united above all by enmity, strategic and ideological with the West? We see all of these four countries talking of an alternative global order, a system that goes against that of the United States and the US-led international order since 1945. We don't see any of these countries wanting to take a position of leadership. China in particular has been quite reluctant and recalcitrant towards publicly adopting a position where it wants to be a leader of this group. But what we do see is common unity in terms of the opposition, unity through opposition, even though the interests of all four states are not identical.

23:17Ukraine matters far more to Russia than North Korea does. Taiwan means much more to China than North Korea does. That's not saying that North Korea is unimportant to these countries. China's reluctant to be a leader, you say. Do you agree with those? And there are many who say, look, this war would end tomorrow, not if Donald Trump merely announced it in a speech, which I seem to remember he did say exactly that in a speech. But if Xi Jinping wanted it to end, if China said to Russia, stop it, it's over. the cash is running out now, forget it, we're not going to buy your oil, then it would be over.

23:52China matters much more economically to North Korea than Russia does. I do not think that China is angry, which is what a lot of the rhetoric surrounding China's position has revolved around. And the reason is, is because if China were so angry, it may be uneasy, it may be uncomfortable at the North Korea-Russia rapprochement. But if China were angry, China could stop enabling Russia's war with Ukraine through the trade of dual use technologies. And if China were really angry with North Korea, China could stop helping North Korea evade sanctions. And it is not doing that at all. I would venture that there's a high chance nobody listening to this has ever been to North Korea.

24:36And their sense of what North Korea is like will come from these phrases, these ideas. It's a hermit kingdom. It's got nuclear ambitions. What do we actually know about North Korea's ambitions, but also its actual military capability to the extent that we should be scared of it? So North Korea has a standing army of 1.4 million. That's huge. Well, that is out of a total population of around about 26 million. It's still pretty big. So this is one of the fourth or fifth largest armies in the world, right, in terms of quantity, in terms of numbers. But here we get the distinction between capabilities and actual resources.

25:21Obviously, a lot of North Korea's conventional capabilities are very much from the Soviet era. This is why North Korea and Kim Jong-un in January 2021, long before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Kim Jong-un made clear that he wanted to upgrade North Korea's conventional weapons and its nuclear weapons capabilities and other weapons capabilities, drones for instance. And so this is why Pyongyang wants to modernise and expand upon the scope and sophistication of its nuclear capabilities in particular. And I think the underlying reason is that North Korea's behaviour is underpinned by what I call strategic delinquency.

26:09Bad behaviour pays. This is a country that is not an irrational actor, but it wants to break the rules and the norms of international relations in order to get benefits. Now, talking of strategic delinquents, who could I be thinking of? Oh, yes, Donald Trump. I thought you were going to talk about my children. I was going to say, don't you dare discuss. Or you. But we remember, of course, that extraordinary summit that was held with the guy that Donald Trump once called Little Rocket Man and then described as his friend and a pretty smart guy, not a religious, as he said. Are you expecting that relationship to be tested out again?

26:48We will have to wait and see. And the reason I say this, and this is a deliberately ambiguous answer, is because one of the reasons why Russia and North Korea have both admitted the existence of North Korean troops, which we have known about for a long time, is because this does offer Moscow and Pyongyang some leverage in talks with the US. We know that Trump wants to talk to Putin, and we know from what Trump has said recently that he wants to talk to Kim Jong-un. The question will be, would Kim Jong-un reciprocate now? Kim Jong-un knows that the Hanoi summit ended in a disaster for North Korea.

27:26It was an embarrassment for North Korea. They had no plan B. And actually, in any talks that North Korea has with the United States at the moment, I do think that Kim Jong-un would want to ensure that he comes back with something tangible. Why do you say it was a disaster for him? Because it's often said Trump achieved nothing. It was a great photo opportunity. People talked about it a lot. But what did he come away with? The nuclear program in North Korea went on. But you said it was bad for Kim Jong-un as well? It was bad for Kim Jong-un because Kim Jong-un actually realised that negotiating with the United States was not as easy as he thought.

28:02Kim Jong-un wanted the easing and the removal of sanctions. He wanted the removal of five specific sanctions imposed in 2016 and 2017. And he did not get that. And we must remember the North Korean foreign minister, the now North Korean foreign minister, Chesun-hee, after that summit in 2019, she famously said, I think our supreme leader has now lost the appetite for negotiations. And if you're Kim Jong-un and you're getting all of these benefits from Russia, you might be thinking, OK, well, I will hold off the United States for now. A final thought. What should Britain do in response to all this?

28:43As you say, the post-1945 global order seems to be crumbling. We're moving into a new era, perhaps a great power rivalry. Britain doesn't want to be a bystander. Britain has chosen a very particular policy towards Donald Trump, which is to get close to him in a way that is not true, for instance, of Mark Carney, who's just been elected the leader of Canada by doing something close to the opposite. What's a smart British foreign policy when it comes to dealing with this new alliance, these crinklies? Britain needs to be clear that the North Korean threat must be taken seriously. Because now the North Korea problem is not just North Korea getting nuclear weapons.

29:21It's now North Korea's relations with Russia. It's a multi-pronged threat. And I think on the part of Britain, we need to make sure that we show resolve in our foreign policy. There's been a lot of quibbling over defence spending from 2.5%, 2.6%, 2.7%. But actually, if we are in a new Cold War, not the same as the Cold War, but a variant of it, we also need to go back and look at history and look at Britain's own defence spending during the Cold War. And back then, we certainly were not quibbling over 2.5 or 2.6%. If Britain is to be seen as a reliable partner, particularly for East Asian states, Japan and South Korea, we need to show that actually the threats that come from East Asia do directly affect us over here.

30:10And just to conclude, the Ukraine war has done just that. It's highlighted that the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific regions are inextricably intertwined. And this is what future conflicts are likely to comprise, an intertwining of the Indo-Pacific and the Euro-Atlantic theatres in the modern day. Edward Hull, thank you so much. It's been fascinating. Edward's from Chatham House, from the Career Foundation, a lecturer at Oxford University, and the book, North Korea and the Global Nuclear Order. Thanks again. And the subtitle is When Bad Behaviour Pays. This could be a book about parenting.