SEOUL, South Korea – Democracies east and west are joining forces to keep tabs on North Korean violations of economic and security sanctions after Russia torpedoed a previous monitoring effort authorized by the United Nations.

But with ties between Pyongyang and Moscow growing closer, including reports 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.

For well over a decade, North Korea’s nuclear arms programs were monitored and sanctioned by the U.N., even though the pressure campaign failed to force Mr. Kim to back down.

---

---

Japan, South Korea, the U.S. and like-minded nations are not giving up: This week, 11 governments established a new body after the U.N. organization tasked with monitoring North Korean sanctions violations was vetoed by Russia in the U.N. Security Council, blasting a huge hole in the international sanctions regime.

North Korea’s alleged supplies of arms to Russia – and what is reportedly its biggest-ever overseas deployment to join the fight in Ukraine — make it unlikely Moscow will drop its objections at the UN.

Their partnership makes sense for both rogue states.

Both North Korea and Russia are aligned against the U.S. and its allies. Both, unlike China, have 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, while Russia has huge grain and fuel reserves, as well as top-tier military technologies greatly coveted by Pyongyang.

The new allied body, the “Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team,” or MSMT, was announced this week to replace the former 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, and the body was dissolved on April 30.

The new MSMT was formed to “monitor and report violations and evasions of the sanction measures stipulated in the relevant UN Security Council resolutions,” Japanese and South Korean media reported this week, even if it is not a UN body.

“Our preference would have been to continue the previous [Security Council] regime,” U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said in a joint press conference on a visit to Seoul this week.”That avenue was prevented by Russian intransigence, so this is the approach that we’ve taken.”

The MSMT’s other members are Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the UK.

Turning to Pyongyang

While Seoul, Tokyo and Washington are heavily engaged in East Asian security, other allied powers are stepping up: This year, Italy sent its aircraft carrier to drill with forces in the region, something that France and the U.K. have done previously. A British carrier strike group is set to head to the Indo-Pacific next year.

In August, Germany became a new member of the South Korea-based UN Command. Australia, Canada and New Zealand have all 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 already exporting massive amounts of artillery and tactical missiles to Russia for the war in Ukraine.

Two summits have also been held between Mr. Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin, leading to the signing in June of a bilateral strategic partnership. 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.

This week, reports of North Korean troops training in Russia have been escalating day by day.

News outlets in Kyyiv first said 3,000 North Korean soldiers had arrived covertly to a remote base in Buryatia, a Russian republic north of Mongolia, to train for combat. Citing intelligence sources, Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky subsequently upped the number to 10,000.

South Korean intelligence officials said Friday that a first contingent of special forces had shipped out to Vladivostok in the Russian Far East, and that 12,000 troops from elite units were earmarked for deployment.

If true, that would be North Korea’s largest-ever expeditionary force. Since the Korean War, the country has only deployed small units overseas, including pilots to the Vietnam and Arab-Israeli 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. 

Pyongyang’s military has had no overseas experience beyond the company-level, or 120 men, said Robert Collins, who advises U.S.

Forces Korea on North Korea. North Koreans do not exercise with other armies, which could also limit their immediate effectiveness as well.

But they could master the challenges. “Don’t underestimate them,” warned Chun In-bum, a retired South Korean general.

If North Korea joins Russia’s fight in Ukraine, it will be the first foreign government to do so.

All of which makes the new 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 Expert. “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 new, united body could prove more effective than its UN 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.

But skeptics say the new monitoring group will struggle to match the legitimacy of a UN-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 UN panel.”

Whether the MSMT’s findings will be enforced is yet another question mark.

“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 finance expert who Washington appointed to the POE.

A well-informed source in Japan was blunter, noting the troubles the world’s powers had enforcing past penalties against offenders.

“It’s hard enough monitoring sanctions,” the source said on background. “Enforcing sanctions? Good [expletive] luck with that!”