Berliner Boersenzeitung - Russian senators to ratify North Korean defence pact

EUR -
AED 3.952026
AFN 72.090344
ALL 96.629749
AMD 416.662752
ANG 1.939668
AOA 981.835282
ARS 1068.174548
AUD 1.644865
AWG 1.928695
AZN 1.826122
BAM 1.931194
BBD 2.172993
BDT 128.611294
BGN 1.950254
BHD 0.405564
BIF 3117.653072
BMD 1.07598
BND 1.416637
BOB 7.43717
BRL 6.275873
BSD 1.076277
BTN 90.523747
BWP 14.311516
BYN 3.52209
BYR 21089.214911
BZD 2.169339
CAD 1.498163
CDF 3060.088045
CHF 0.939225
CLF 0.037301
CLP 1029.261432
CNY 7.694118
CNH 7.660222
COP 4752.067227
CRC 550.283427
CUC 1.07598
CUP 28.513479
CVE 108.99993
CZK 25.399576
DJF 191.223465
DKK 7.457561
DOP 65.069873
DZD 143.150264
EGP 52.892074
ERN 16.139705
ETB 130.139763
FJD 2.440485
FKP 0.823307
GBP 0.834541
GEL 2.921283
GGP 0.823307
GHS 17.643726
GIP 0.823307
GMD 76.927863
GNF 9285.710584
GTQ 8.306167
GYD 225.159034
HKD 8.368384
HNL 26.985499
HRK 7.412461
HTG 141.624174
HUF 410.153026
IDR 17051.544839
ILS 4.031289
IMP 0.823307
INR 90.636765
IQD 1409.534262
IRR 45290.71379
ISK 148.926694
JEP 0.823307
JMD 170.161876
JOD 0.762974
JPY 165.917782
KES 138.801527
KGS 92.719808
KHR 4384.620182
KMF 484.782851
KPW 968.382075
KRW 1505.882907
KWD 0.329874
KYD 0.896864
KZT 527.681619
LAK 23605.933117
LBP 96334.31538
LKR 315.388533
LRD 205.485362
LSL 18.70025
LTL 3.17709
LVL 0.65085
LYD 5.202374
MAD 10.539255
MDL 19.221905
MGA 4965.649301
MKD 61.402897
MMK 3494.742214
MNT 3656.181268
MOP 8.614557
MRU 42.933701
MUR 49.527157
MVR 16.581153
MWK 1867.365579
MXN 22.251639
MYR 4.727901
MZN 68.728234
NAD 18.689339
NGN 1787.978412
NIO 39.579939
NOK 11.97331
NPR 144.838192
NZD 1.814087
OMR 0.414324
PAB 1.076178
PEN 4.060218
PGK 4.31522
PHP 63.45648
PKR 299.014404
PLN 4.367673
PYG 8415.770123
QAR 3.917109
RON 4.976391
RSD 117.031156
RUB 105.43413
RWF 1468.713181
SAR 4.042027
SBD 8.929913
SCR 14.655995
SDG 647.199179
SEK 11.689327
SGD 1.431769
SHP 0.823307
SLE 24.478444
SLL 22562.766562
SOS 614.384902
SRD 37.557101
STD 22270.620903
SVC 9.417013
SYP 2703.433204
SZL 18.690365
THB 36.545134
TJS 11.461852
TMT 3.765931
TND 3.342526
TOP 2.52005
TRY 36.979401
TTD 7.29992
TWD 34.56264
TZS 2898.016449
UAH 44.636956
UGX 3951.613629
USD 1.07598
UYU 44.779441
UZS 13767.168229
VEF 3897795.353308
VES 46.720783
VND 27346.040661
VUV 127.742581
WST 3.014019
XAF 647.698306
XAG 0.031898
XAU 0.000395
XCD 2.907891
XDR 0.806319
XOF 648.279376
XPF 119.331742
YER 268.806812
ZAR 19.152777
ZMK 9685.115381
ZMW 29.030833
ZWL 346.465235
  • NGG

    1.0200

    65.47

    +1.56%

  • SCS

    0.0700

    12.32

    +0.57%

  • RBGPF

    64.1700

    64.17

    +100%

  • CMSD

    0.1200

    25.04

    +0.48%

  • BCC

    4.2300

    138.49

    +3.05%

  • CMSC

    0.0400

    24.68

    +0.16%

  • AZN

    -5.1600

    66.27

    -7.79%

  • GSK

    0.0500

    37.02

    +0.14%

  • RIO

    0.4900

    65.5

    +0.75%

  • BTI

    0.3500

    35.46

    +0.99%

  • RYCEF

    -0.0200

    7.28

    -0.27%

  • BCE

    -0.2800

    28.84

    -0.97%

  • RELX

    0.8500

    47.91

    +1.77%

  • JRI

    0.1700

    13.27

    +1.28%

  • BP

    0.2300

    29.96

    +0.77%

  • VOD

    0.0900

    9.41

    +0.96%

Russian senators to ratify North Korean defence pact
Russian senators to ratify North Korean defence pact / Photo: YURI KOCHETKOV - POOL/AFP

Russian senators to ratify North Korean defence pact

Russian lawmakers will vote Wednesday to ratify a landmark mutual defence pact with North Korea, as the West says Pyongyang sent thousands of troops to fight for Russia against Ukraine.

Text size:

The agreement formalises months of deepening security cooperation between the two nations who were Communist allies throughout the Cold War.

North Korea has become one of the most vocal and important backers of Russia's full-scale offensive on Ukraine.

The West has long accused Pyongyang of supplying artillery shells and missiles to Moscow to fire on Ukraine.

The latest accusations, based on intelligence reports, that North Korea has deployed around 10,000 troops to Russia suggest even deeper involvement in the conflict and have triggered an outcry and warnings in Seoul, Kyiv and Western capitals.

Under the strategic partnership treaty between Russia and North Korea, each country would be obligated to provide military assistance "without delay" if the other were invaded, their leaders said when signing it in June.

"It is really a breakthrough document," Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a news conference in the North Korean capital.

He added that it provided, "among other things, for mutual assistance in case of aggression against one of the parties to this treaty".

It also commits them to cooperate internationally to oppose Western sanctions and coordinate positions at the United Nations.

Putin signed the deal in June during his first trip in 24 years to North Korea, where he was welcomed by leader Kim Jong Un in a lavish ceremony.

Kim has called Putin his "closest comrade" while Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui said last week that North Korea would "stand firmly by our Russian comrades until victory day".

She called Moscow's offensive against Ukraine a "sacred struggle" and said Pyongyang believed in Putin's "wise leadership".

- 'Frontline' -

Russia's Federation Council, the upper chamber of a rubber-stamp parliament, is set to approve the treaty.

It will then go back to Putin's desk for a final signature.

The ratification comes as North Korea faces growing international pressure not to send its troops into combat alongside Russia.

South Korea warned Tuesday that a substantial deployment was already near the combat zone, including in Russia's western Kursk region, where Kyiv has been mounting a cross-border offensive since the summer.

"More than 10,000 North Korean soldiers are currently in Russia, and we assess that a significant portion of them are deployed to frontline areas, including Kursk," Jeon Ha-gyu, a spokesman for the South Korean Defence Ministry, said Tuesday.

North Korea has denied the deployment.

Asked directly about the reports last month, Putin did not deny that North Korean troops had been sent to Russia.

And several other Russian officials have deflected requests to comment on Western intelligence.

"The Kyiv regime is trying to do everything to involve Seoul" in the conflict, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday, refusing to comment on the substance of the allegations.

- Missile tests -

In exchange for sending troops, the West fears Russia is offering North Korea technological support that could advance Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programme.

The reclusive state fired a salvo of short-range ballistic missiles early Tuesday, Seoul's military said, its second launch in days.

But sending North Korean troops to fight against Ukraine would be a major escalation in the conflict, more than two and a half years after Moscow launched its full-scale offensive.

Russia has seized the momentum on the battlefield this year as it grinds through the eastern Donbas region, capturing a string of towns and villages as Ukraine struggles with manpower and ammunition shortages.

Moscow's forces took control of more territory in October than in any single month since March 2022, AFP analysis of data compiled by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) showed.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has become increasingly exasperated at what he calls the West's delays in giving Ukraine the firepower it needs to push Russia back and over a lack of response to reports of the North Korean troop deployment.

(A.Lehmann--BBZ)