Russia, North Korea open first cross-border road bridge as partnership deepens
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Russia and North Korea opened the first road bridge across their shared border in a ceremony on Sept. 7, marking the deepening partnership between Moscow and Pyongyang.
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and North Korean Prime Minister Park Thae-song joined the ceremony online, with Mishustin calling the opening a "strong impetus for the development of trade, economic, scientific, technological, and cultural cooperation."
The relationship between the two countries has grown considerably amid North Korea's support for Russia's war in Ukraine, with Pyongyang providing soldiers, shells, and missiles for the Kremlin's war effort.
The one-kilometer bridge crosses the Tumen River, connecting Khasan in Russia's far-eastern Primorsky Krai with North Korea's Tumangang.
The crossing has been named after Yakov Novichenko, a Soviet officer who was said to have saved then-North Korean leader Kim Il Sung from an assassination attempt in 1946.
Until now, Russia's only land connection to North Korea had been the "Friendship" railway bridge, built in 1959, located near the new road crossing.
Both Moscow and Pyongyang asserted that the new bridge is solely intended for trade and non-military purposes, but experts who spoke to the Kyiv Independent have questioned these claims.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un concluded a strategic partnership agreement in June 2024, only a few months before Pyongyang dispatched thousands of troops to fight Ukrainian forces in Russia's Kursk Oblast.
North Korea has also been Russia's crucial source of artillery shells and an important supplier of ballistic missiles, receiving cash and technology in return.
Ukrainian intelligence suggested in August that Russia plans to ask North Korea to contribute up to 50,000 more of its troops for the war.
