Russia Defense Chief Says North Korean Army 'Strongest in the World'—Report

On a historic visit to Pyongyang, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu described North Korea's army as "the strongest in the world," the country's state media reported.

State news agency KCNA reported that Shoigu made the comments during a reception on Wednesday for the Russian delegation visiting on the 70th anniversary of the end of the Korean War, which is called Victory Day in the north of the peninsula.

One expert told Newsweek that the visit signaled a "more explicit alignment between the North Korean and Russian states."

With around 1.2 million personnel, the military force of North Korea, known as the Korean People's Army (KPA) is the fourth largest in the world in 2022, according to Statista. Russia is in fifth place, with around 830,000, while China's two-million-strong army is the world's largest.

But the report of Shoigu's comments by KCNA, which pushes Pyongyang propaganda, suggested that the Russian defense minister held North Korea's military in high regard, if not better than his own.

The KCNA article written in Russian said that Shoigu had thanked the country's army and people for the "warm welcome." Not using direct quotes and citing Shoigu in the third person, KCNA said he had emphasized that North Korea's army under the stewardship of Kim had "tirelessly strengthened its power."

The agency also cited Shoigu as saying that after "the heroic deeds" of the war that ended in 1953, the KPA became the strongest army in the world.

Newsweek reached out to the Russian Foreign Ministry via email for comment on Shoigu's reported remarks.

First visit since Cold War

Shoigu's visit was the first by a defense minister from Moscow since the end of the Cold War. Accompanied by the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, Shoigu was shown Pyongyang's latest drones and ballistic missiles which are banned under international sanctions. A U.S. official said last October that North Korea was supplying Russia with military hardware such as rockets and artillery shells.

Anthony Rinna, a senior editor with the research group Sino-NK, and an expert on Korean-Russian relations, told Newsweek that Shoigu's presence in Pyongyang was no surprise given recent trends in relations between North Korea and Russia.

Before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Moscow had insisted that it was adhering to United Nations sanctions against North Korea, said Rinna. He believed It was noteworthy that the Wagner Group, not the regular Russian armed forces, received the alleged transfer of weapons from Pyongyang, which has given Moscow some plausible deniability.

But with Kim "showing unabashed support for Putin in the wake of the Wagner rebellion—that conduit of plausible deniability has been removed," he said. "Thus, we can see a more explicit alignment between the North Korean and Russian states"

"While it is unknown as to whether Shoigu would have shown up at such an exhibition had the Wagner uprising not occurred, it is noteworthy that further military cooperation between North Korea and Russia will occur at an explicit state-to-state level," he said.

"North Korea-Russia military cooperation had been strictly limited in the past, but Shoigu's appearance takes things to a whole new level," Rinna added.