SEOUL, South Korea — Democracies worldwide are joining forces to keep tabs on North Korean violations of economic and security sanctions after Russia torpedoed a monitoring effort authorized by the United Nations.
With expanding ties between Pyongyang and Moscow, including reports that North Korean soldiers are joining the Kremlin’s fight in Ukraine, it’s not clear how effective the new mechanism will be in restraining the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
The United Nations monitored and sanctioned North Korea’s nuclear arms programs for well over a decade, but the pressure campaign failed to force Mr. Kim to back down.
Japan, South Korea, the U.S. and other like-minded nations are not giving up. Last week, 11 governments established a body after Russia blasted a hole in the international sanctions regime by vetoing the U.N. Security Council organization tasked with monitoring North Korean violations.
Because of North Korea’s arms supplies to Russia and reportedly its biggest-ever overseas deployment to join the fight in Ukraine, Moscow is unlikely to drop its objections.
The Russia-North Korea partnership makes sense for the rogue states.
Both are aligned against the U.S. and its allies. Unlike China, neither has been cut off from markets in the developed industrial world, and both have proved resilient in undercutting international sanctions. North Korea boasts a massive armory, and Russia has vast grain and fuel reserves and top-tier military technologies coveted by Pyongyang.
The Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team, or MSMT, was announced last week to replace the U.N. Panel of Experts. The panel had been operating since 2009, but its cohesiveness was undermined when Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine created a distinct cleavage at the Security Council.
In March, Russia vetoed a resolution to extend the Panel of Experts’ mandate. The body was dissolved on April 30.
The MSMT was formed to “monitor and report violations and evasions of the sanction measures stipulated in the relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions,” Japanese and South Korean media reported.
“Our preference would have been to continue the previous [Security Council] regime,” Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said in a joint press conference on a visit to Seoul. “That avenue was prevented by Russian intransigence, so this is the approach that we’ve taken.”
The MSMT’s other members are Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and New Zealand.
Turning to Pyongyang
While Seoul, Tokyo and Washington are heavily engaged in East Asian security, other allied powers are stepping up. Italy sent its aircraft carrier to drill with forces in the region this year, as France and Britain have done. A British carrier strike group is set to head to the Indo-Pacific next year.
In August, Germany became a member of the South Korea-based U.N. Command. Australia, Canada and New Zealand have been active in the region, and a Dutch surface escort joined the last British deployment to the Indo-Pacific in 2022.
Russia, shunned by the U.S. and the coalition supporting Ukraine since 2022, has turned to Pyongyang. According to South Korean and U.S. intelligence, North Korea is exporting massive amounts of artillery and tactical missiles to Russia for the war in Ukraine.
Mr. Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin held two summits leading to the signing of a bilateral strategic partnership in June. One clause requires each party to support the other if its territory is invaded. Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk oblast could trigger that clause.
Reports of North Korean troops training in Russia have been escalating daily.
News outlets in Kyiv first reported that 3,000 North Korean soldiers had arrived covertly at a remote base in Buryatia, a Russian republic north of Mongolia, to train for combat. Citing intelligence sources, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy subsequently increased the number to 10,000.
South Korean intelligence officials said Friday that a first contingent of special operations forces had shipped out to Vladivostok in the Russian Far East and that 12,000 troops from elite units were earmarked for deployment.
That would be North Korea’s largest-ever expeditionary force. Since the Korean War, the North has deployed only small units overseas, including pilots to the Vietnam and Arab-Israel wars; advisers to African armies in the 1980s; and, reportedly, two special forces units to assist the regime of President Bashar Assad in Syria’s civil war.
Robert Collins, who advises U.S. Forces Korea on North Korea, said Pyongyang’s military has had no overseas experience beyond the company level, or 120 men. North Koreans do not exercise with other armies, which could limit their immediate effectiveness.
They could master the challenges. “Don’t underestimate them,” said Chun In-bum, a retired South Korean general.
North Korea would be the first foreign nation to join Russia’s fight in Ukraine, making the MSMT’s mission more daunting.
“The existence of this new body does give the like-minded states a clear route if they want suspicions of sanctions-breaking to be investigated,” said Martin Uden, formerly London’s coordinator on the Panel of Experts. “Simple, open publication of any findings of the new body could be effective, so long as it is seen to be independent of the politics of its sponsors — which, of course, won’t be easy.”
The State Department’s Mr. Campbell said the united body could prove more effective than its U.N. predecessor.
“This grouping of nations that are animated by common purpose have the potential to actually surpass some of the work and reporting that was done previously,” Mr. Campbell said in Seoul.
Skeptics say the monitoring group will struggle to match the legitimacy of a U.N.-authorized entity.
“It cannot have the access or standing that a U.N. body would have,” said Mr. Uden, who also served as British ambassador to Seoul.
“Why should neutral countries like, say, South Africa, India or Singapore want to cooperate with it? It was hard enough to get countries to share with the U.N. panel.”
Whether the MSMT’s findings will be enforced is another question.
“The real test is whether the [MSMT] reports provide sufficient evidence for governments, banks, firms, etc., to take appropriate action — like designations,” said William Newcomb, a Washington-appointed finance specialist on the Panel of Experts.
A well-informed source in Japan bluntly noted the troubles of enforcement.
“It’s hard enough monitoring sanctions,” the source said on background. “Enforcing sanctions? Good … luck with that.”
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