The headline version says Russia, Iran and North Korea have formed an axis. The shift underneath is messier, and more interesting. Analysts who study the three capitals describe a set of separate deals that overlap, with Moscow at the centre of each.
Pyongyang: the closest tie
Eric Woods, writing for the Riddle Russia journal in October 2024, called the North Korea link the only one near enough to a military alliance to deserve the word. It took shape in 2024, first through artillery and rockets, then short-range ballistic missiles and, he noted, possibly advisers and ground troops. The Soviet Union had once armed Pyongyang by the thousand. That supply died with the Soviet collapse. Now the flow runs the other way, with Russia the buyer.
On June 19, 2024, Vladimir Putin flew to Pyongyang, his first trip there since July 2000, and signed a partnership agreement with Kim Jong Un. “The comprehensive partnership agreement signed today provides, among other things, for mutual assistance in the event of aggression against one of the parties to this agreement,” Putin said. Kim, as quoted by Russian news agencies, offered “full support and solidarity” for what Moscow calls its special military operation. Both governments rejected Western accusations that North Korea was shipping weapons in breach of sanctions.
The deployment that followed is on the record. Defense News, citing Reuters, reported in August 2026 that Ukrainian and South Korean estimates put the North Korean contingent in Russia’s Kursk region at 14,000 to 15,000 troops. Both governments acknowledged in April 2025 that the North Koreans had been fighting against Ukrainian units. Sergei Shoigu, who runs Russia’s Security Council, said in June 2025 that Pyongyang would send 1,000 sappers, plus 5,000 builders from its army. The latest Ukrainian claim is a missile unit of about 90 personnel heading for the Voronezh region, armed with as many as 120 ballistic missiles, along with six launchers. In July Zelenskyy claimed Moscow hoped to receive 30,000 North Korean troops. Reuters could not verify that figure.
Tehran: drones and know-how
Iran is a different kind of partner. Woods traced Russian arms sales to Iran back to at least 1986. What changed after the invasion of Ukraine is the direction of travel: Russia began buying from Iran. The prize was the Shahed, a one-way attack drone that behaves like a throwaway cruise missile. Russian industry had focused on scouting drones, the Orlan-10 among them, and had nothing similar. It took a scramble in mid-2022 to see the gap. Russia now builds its own version, the Geran, based on the Iranian design, though how that production line is organised remains unclear.
What the axis label hides
Woods argued that “axis” oversells it. His reading is of an interlocking series of partnerships rather than a three-way pact, with North Korea closest to a true alliance and Iran lower down the rung. He added a quieter point: Russia is learning sanctions evasion from both countries, which pioneered tactics against UN and US restrictions, and then applying them on a far larger scale.
China sits outside the circle, according to the same analysis. Chinese officials hedge, and front companies there help Russia and Iran buy dual-use technology.
NATO’s Jens Stoltenberg saw it differently on the day of the Pyongyang summit. Putin’s visit, he said, “demonstrates and confirms the very close alignments between Russia and authoritarian states like North Korea, but also China and Iran.”
Sources
- Russia, Iran, North Korea: Not a New Axis – Riddle Russia
- North Korea's Kim and Russia's Putin sign partnership treaty
- How North Korean forces are bolstering Russia’s war against Ukraine – Defense News
