A Timeline of the Complicated Relations between Russia and North Korea

FILE - Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un shake hands during their meeting in Vladivostok, Russia, Thursday, April 25, 2019. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, Pool, File)
FILE - Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un shake hands during their meeting in Vladivostok, Russia, Thursday, April 25, 2019. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, Pool, File)
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A Timeline of the Complicated Relations between Russia and North Korea

FILE - Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un shake hands during their meeting in Vladivostok, Russia, Thursday, April 25, 2019. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, Pool, File)
FILE - Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un shake hands during their meeting in Vladivostok, Russia, Thursday, April 25, 2019. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, Pool, File)

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has arrived in Russia to see President Vladimir Putin. It will be the two isolated leaders' second meeting. Their governments have not confirmed an agenda, but US officials say Putin may ask for artillery and other ammunition for his war in Ukraine.
Such a request would mark a reversal of roles from the 1950-53 Korean War, when the Soviet Union provided ammunition, warplanes and pilots to support communist North Korea's invasion of the South, and the decades of Soviet sponsorship of the North that followed, The Associated Press said.
Despite their often aligning interests, relations between Russia and North Korea have experienced highs and lows. A timeline of some key events:
1945-1948 — Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula ends with Tokyo’s World War II defeat in 1945 but the peninsula is eventually divided into a Soviet-backed north and a US-backed south. The Soviet military installs future dictator Kim Il Sung, a former guerrilla leader who fought Japanese forces in Manchuria, into power in the North.
1950-1953 — Kim Il Sung’s forces execute a surprise attack on the South in June 1950, triggering the Korean War. The conflict brought in forces from the newly created People’s Republic of China, aided by the Soviet air force. Troops from South Korea, the United States and other countries under the direction of the United Nations battle to repulse the invasion. A 1953 armistice stops the fighting and leaves the Korean Peninsula in a technical state of war.
Mid-1950s through 1960s — The Soviet Union continues to provide economic and military assistance to North Korea, but their relations decline as Kim Il Sung violently purges pro-Soviet and pro-Chinese factions within the North’s leadership to consolidate his power. Moscow reduces its aid but does not cut it off until the end of the Cold War.
1970s — As a rivalry between the Soviet Union and China intensifies, North Korea pursues an “equidistance” policy that allows it to play the mutually hostile communist giants against each other to extract more aid from both. Pyongyang also attempts to reduce its dependency on Moscow and Beijing, but a series of policy failures following heavy borrowing from international financial markets push the North Korean economy into decades of disarray.
1980s — Following Mikhail Gorbachev’s rise to power, the Soviet Union begins to reduce aid to North Korea and to favor reconciliation with South Korea. Seoul also expands diplomatic relations with communist countries in Eastern Europe, leaving Pyongyang increasingly isolated.
1990s — The 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union deprives North Korea of its main economic and security benefactor. The post-communist government in Moscow led by President Boris Yeltsin shows no enthusiasm for supporting North Korea with continued aid and subsidized trade. Moscow establishes formal diplomatic ties with Seoul in hopes of drawing South Korean investment and allows its Soviet-era military alliance with North Korea to expire. Kim Il Sung dies in 1994, and North Korea experiences a devastating famine later in the 1990s. The number of people to die in the mass starvation is estimated in the hundreds of thousands.
Early 2000s — After his first election as president in 2000, Vladimir Putin actively seeks to restore Russia’s ties with North Korea. Putin visits Pyongyang in July of that year to meet with Kim Jong Il, the second-generation North Korean leader. The two issue joint criticism of US missile defense plans. The trip is seen as Russia's statement that it would work to restore its traditional domains of influence as the divergence between Moscow and the West over key security issues grows. Putin hosts Kim Jong Il for subsequent meetings in Russia in 2001 and 2002.
Mid-to-late 2000s — Despite warmer relations, Russia twice supports UN Security Council sanctions against North Korea over what was then a nascent nuclear weapons and missile program. Russia participates in talks aimed at persuading the North to abandon its nuclear program in exchange for security and economic benefits. The talks, which also involved the United States, China, South Korea and Japan, collapse in December 2008.
2011-2012 — Months after a summit with then-Russian President Dimitry Medvedev in August 2011, Kim Jong Il dies. His son, Kim Jong Un, succeeds him as North Korea's ruler. In 2012, Russia agrees to write off 90% of North Korea’s estimated $11 billion debt.
2016-2017 — Kim Jong Un accelerates the North's nuclear and missile tests. Russia supports stringent Security Council sanctions that include limiting oil supplies and cracking down on the country’s labor exports.
2018-2019 — Kim Jong Un initiates diplomacy with Washington and Seoul to leverage his nuclear program for economic benefits. He also tries to improve ties with traditional allies China and Russia to boost his bargaining power. After his second meeting with US President Donald Trump break down over US-led sanctions on the North, Kim Jong Un travels to the eastern Russian city of Vladivostok for his first summit with Putin in April 2019. The leaders vow to expand cooperation, but the meeting doesn’t produce substantial results.
2022 — While using the distraction caused by Russia’s war on Ukraine to further ramp up its weapons tests, North Korea blames the United States for the conflict. Pyongyang claims the West’s “hegemonic policy” gave Putin justification to defend Russia by sending troops into the neighboring country. North Korea joins Russia and Syria in recognizing the independence of two Moscow-backed separatist regions of eastern Ukraine and hints at an interest in sending construction workers to those areas to help with rebuilding efforts. Russia and China block US-led efforts at the Security Council to strengthen sanctions on North Korea over its intensifying missile tests.
Sept, 12, 2023 — Kim Jong Un arrives in Russia to meet with Putin. He is expected to seek Russian economic aid and military technology in exchange for munitions to fuel Russia's war in Ukraine. The meeting follows Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu making a rare visit to North Korea in July and attending a massive military parade where Kim showcased long-range missiles designed to target the US mainland.



Gazans’ Daily Struggle for Water After Deadly Israeli Strike

 Palestinians wait for donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)
Palestinians wait for donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)
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Gazans’ Daily Struggle for Water After Deadly Israeli Strike

 Palestinians wait for donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)
Palestinians wait for donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)

The al-Manasra family rarely get enough water for both drinking and washing after their daily trudge to a Gaza distribution point like the one where eight people were killed on Sunday in a strike that Israel's military said had missed its target.

Living in a tent camp by the ruins of a smashed concrete building in Gaza City, the family say their children are already suffering from diarrhea and skin maladies and from the lack of clean water, and they fear worse to come.

"There's no water, our children have been infected with scabies, there are no hospitals to go to and no medications," said Akram Manasra, 51.

He had set off on Monday for a local water tap with three of his daughters, each of them carrying two heavy plastic containers in Gaza's blazing summer heat, but they only managed to fill two - barely enough for the family of 10.

Gaza's lack of clean water after 21 months of war and four months of Israeli blockade is already having "devastating impacts on public health" the United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA said in a report this month.

For people queuing at a water distribution point on Sunday it was fatal. A missile that Israel said had targeted fighters but malfunctioned hit a queue of people waiting to collect water at the Nuseirat refugee camp.

Israel's blockade of fuel along with the difficulty in accessing wells and desalination plants in zones controlled by the Israeli military is severely constraining water, sanitation and hygiene services according to OCHA.

Fuel shortages have also hit waste and sewage services, risking more contamination of the tiny, crowded territory's dwindling water supply, and diseases causing diarrhea and jaundice are spreading among people crammed into shelters and weakened by hunger.

"If electricity was allowed to desalination plants the problem of a lethal lack of water, which is what's becoming the situation now in Gaza, would be changed within 24 hours," said James Elder, the spokesperson for the UN's children's agency UNICEF.

"What possible reason can there be for denying of a legitimate amount of water that a family needs?" he added.

COGAT, the Israeli military aid coordination agency, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Last week, an Israeli military official said that Israel was allowing sufficient fuel into Gaza but that its distribution around the enclave was not under Israel's purview.

THIRSTY AND DIRTY

For the Manasra family, like others in Gaza, the daily toil of finding water is exhausting and often fruitless.

Inside their tent the family tries to maintain hygiene by sweeping. But there is no water for proper cleaning and sometimes they are unable to wash dishes from their meager meals for several days at a time.

Manasra sat in the tent and showed how one of his young daughters had angry red marks across her back from what he said a doctor had told them was a skin infection caused by the lack of clean water.

They maintain a strict regimen of water use by priority.

After pouring their two containers of water from the distribution point into a broken plastic water butt by their tent, they use it to clean themselves from the tap, using their hands to spoon it over their heads and bodies.

Water that runs off into the basin underneath is then used for dishes and after that - now grey and dirty - for clothes.

"How is this going to be enough for 10 people? For the showering, washing, dish washing, and the washing of the covers. It's been three months; we haven't washed the covers, and the weather is hot," Manasra said.

His wife, Umm Khaled, sat washing clothes in a tiny puddle of water at the bottom of a bucket - all that was left after the more urgent requirements of drinking and cooking.

"My daughter was very sick from the heat rash and the scabies. I went to several doctors for her and they prescribed many medications. Two of my children yesterday, one had diarrhea and vomiting and the other had fever and infections from the dirty water," she said.