Moscow/Pyongyang, July 28 (IANS) Russia and North Korea are completing the first direct road connection, with the construction of a two-lane bridge, one kilometre long and about seven metres wide, over the Tumen River, between the localities of Khasan and Tumangang, which runs alongside the already existing railway connection.
The infrastructure, the result of a project launched after the strategic partnership agreement signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Supreme Leader of North Korea Kim Jong-un in June 2024 – and which should have been inaugurated last June but is not yet completed on the Russian side – seems to signal Moscow and Pyongyang’s intention to strengthen their military cooperation, with the transport of North Korean soldiers and engineers to Russia, and Russian high-tech military components to North Korea, Italian News Agency Adnkronos reported.
North Korea’s road network is much more extensive than its railway network, making it more difficult to monitor in its entirety. Loading and unloading operations can be done anywhere and faster, so loads are less exposed to satellite passage.
And while trucks always appear the same in satellite images, train wagons reveal much of their content in satellite-taken images. In addition, the new infrastructure cost 100 million dollars against a trade exchange of 34 million (2024 data). Tourism is also limited to escorted tours for no more than 10,000 people per year (in 2025), with a final destination 500 kilometres from the crossing. The railway tracks in the two countries have different gauges, so trains must be modified before crossing the border.
North Korea had sent 14,000 soldiers to fight alongside the Russians in Kursk, after the incursion of Ukrainian forces in August 2024, two thousand of whom reportedly fell on the front.
Volodymyr Zelensky has announced that Pyongyang intends to send another 30,000 troops now.
–IANS
ksk/as
