What can Washington do to disrupt a Russia-North Korea partnership?

On Thursday, White House national security spokesman John Kirby delivered a warning to Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un: the United States knows what you’re doing, and it urges you to cease and desist.

The subject of consternation: North Korean weapons supplies to the Russian military, which over the last three months has been trying to defend against a Western-supplied Ukrainian counteroffensive along the 600 mile-long front line. ”Under these potential deals Russia would receive significant quantities and multiple types of munitions from [North Korea], which the Russian military plans to use in Ukraine,” Kirby told reporters during a White House briefing. “These potential deals could also include the provision of raw materials that would assist Russia’s defense industrial base.”

This isn’t the first time the Biden administration has sounded the alarm about potential weapons agreements between Pyongyang and Moscow. In September 2022, Washington declassified intelligence that pointed to Russian purchases of North Korean artillery shells and rockets, all of which occurred at a time when the Russian army’s position on the ground was even worse off than it is today. In November 2022, the U.S. alleged that North Korea was covertly supplying munitions to the Russians, routing them through the Middle East to obscure their origin. This March, the White House released additional information: in exchange for artillery, Russia would provide the North Koreans with desperately needed food aid.

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