The Russian president’s Brics summit proves the limits of his anti-western alliance, the defence expert writes
Mark Galeotti
October 26, 2024
The Sunday Times
A photograph of the North Korean flag flying outside the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk has spread despondency among its defenders. President Zelensky says North Korean troops have joined the fighting this weekend, although Washington is being more cautious, suggesting that they are only undergoing training. Nonetheless, most sources agree that they have arrived in Russia.
President Putin has long spoken of his vision of a “multipolar” world. He argues that the world would be better off if, instead of the American dominance seen since the end of the Cold War, there were a number of superpowers of varying ideologies, prominent among them authoritarian Russia.
The presence of North Korean troops in Russia seems a victory for this idea. However, just as the West should not take this out of proportion — this is not the start of a new world war — Putin should realise that this movement towards multipolarity, evident at the well-attended Brics summit in Kazan, is not a process he can control.
Explosives from Pyongyang
North Korea has long been providing ordnance for Russia, and with them some technical specialists, especially associated with use of its KN-23 tactical ballistic missiles, which have proved temperamental, often misfiring or exploding in mid-air. Six North Korean technicians were killed this month in a Ukrainian strike on Donetsk.
The apparent arrival of North Korean combat troops from the elite XI Corps, known as the “storm corps” in the Russian Far East, in numbers ranging from 1,500 to 12,000 according to various reports, represents a significant deepening of Pyongyang’s commitment to Russia but does not necessarily mean that they are intended for immediate combat. Instead, they may be used for rear-area security operations, freeing up Russians for the front.
Not-so-special forces
While these are sometimes described as special forces, they are hardly analogous to British Marines or paras, let alone the SAS. They are, to be fair, more “special” than most of the 950,000 ordinary troops in the Korean People’s Army, and are considered to be physically tough, disciplined and well-drilled.
They have no actual combat experience, though, and the war has highlighted how crucial this is. Deploying them directly into battle would also be problematic. Although most North Koreans
speak some Russian, the risks of miscommunication and friendly fire incidents would be considerable. Pyongyang would also be worried about the risk of defections to Ukraine.
Either way, the importance of even 12,000 new troops needs to be kept in context. The Russians are losing that many men in every ten days of fighting. This would not change the basic arithmetic of the war.
What North Korea will gain
Besides, Kim Jong-un is not helping Putin out of kindness. A new “comprehensive strategic partnership” ratified by the Russian parliament on Thursday commits Moscow to providing direct military support to North Korea if it is attacked.
Russia is having to pay for North Korea’s often substandard ordnance and, maybe substandard soldiers, with not just food and raw materials, but also technology. Even if one excludes claims that Moscow is directly helping Kim’s nuclear weapons programme, Russia is providing its expertise in rocketry, aviation technology and cybersecurity.
There are Russian commentators concerned that Putin is selling off the family silver to gain short-term respite. After Russian troops have fired the eight million artillery rounds that Moscow bought North Korea can sell it more, but technology can only be sold once.
A new world order?
The Brics summit in Russia was on the surface a political triumph for Putin but actually demonstrated the limits of his attempts to create an anti-western alliance.
As rotating chair of the group, Putin was able to host this year’s gathering, and so Kazan, the capital of Russia’s republic of Tatarstan, was put on display, with the state media proclaiming that it was “the capital of the world for three days”.
Putin could use his podium to claim that the group represented an alternative vision of the global order, and the presence of António Guterres, the UN secretary-general, who had ignored an invitation to Kyiv’s first peace summit, and President Erdogan of Turkey, a member of Nato, represented propaganda coups.
Brics without mortar
However, most of the existing and potential members, while sharing a desire to see a world less dominated by western values and interests, are not interested in directly opposing it.
Besides, while Putin claimed that 34 countries had expressed an interest in closer relations with the organisation, the only members to join the original five — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — have been Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. Even countries once regarded as virtually within Moscow’s sphere of influence, such as Armenia and Kazakhstan, have chosen not to join.
It is increasingly clear that the West’s capacity to shape the world is being challenged. Last week, a senior American diplomat glumly admitted to me that “this whole war is something of a
wake-up call for us. Back in 2021, we could still kid ourselves that we were masters of the universe, but the limits on [US] power and influence have become clearer.”
Influence for sale
Putin has certainly been the beneficiary in many ways, with numerous countries willing to turn a blind eye to sanctions busting, hire Russian mercenaries or buy its cheap oil. But this doesn’t make them Russia’s vassals, or even really its allies. This is nothing more than a transactional process, and Putin is not in control of it. As an émigré Russian with close links to the Kremlin put it: “[Putin] does not realise, or is not willing to admit, that being unhappy with the West does not make you pro-Russian.”
Instead, he is having to buy his allies’ support. The Kremlin had to placate Tehran by breaking with Israel, a country with which Putin had built good relations. Beijing has been able to force Russia into energy deals on unfavourable terms, and if reports about backchannel communications between Putin and Elon Musk are true, the Russian president was forced to ask him, as a favour to President Xi of China, not to extend his Starlink satellite internet services to Taiwan. Even Pyongyang, once a desperate pariah state, can deal with Moscow as an equal.
A question of unity
The irony is that the West and the Kremlin alike overstate the unity of the anti-western forces, and the degree to which Putin is able to bend them to his will.
He looked confident at Kazan, but in practice he failed to make any serious progress on his key priorities. “De-dollarisation”, reducing reliance on the US dollar in international trade, is one such, but while China is supportive, Brazil and India are lukewarm. Although the dollar is receding in certain sectors, Brics is not driving this.
Putin hustled in vain for a statement supporting Moscow’s war in Ukraine. The best he could do was to say in his closing speech that “everyone is committed to ensuring that the conflict ends as quickly as possible and by peaceful means”. But China and India distanced themselves from Putin’s aggressive rhetoric and implicitly backed a negotiated end to the war.
Talk of the “axis of resistance”, “axis of upheaval” or “Crink” — for what George Robertson, the former Nato secretary-general called the “deadly” alliance between China, Russia and North Korea — risks underplaying the serious divisions between these nations.
Each country has its own agenda, and is ruthless in pursuing it. Beijing does not want Putin defeated in Ukraine but nor is it willing to risk secondary sanctions for him. Moscow is desperately hoping that it is never dragged by China into a wider war against Taiwan. Pyongyang and Tehran will both arm Russia but for pay, not fellowship.
Putin ultimately can have all the fair-weather friends he wants. But he has to buy them.
Professor Mark Galeotti is the author of more than 20 books on Russia, most recently Downfall: Prigozhin and Putin, and the New Fight for the Future of Russia (Penguin, June 2024)