RITTER: Putin's Visit to North Korea a 'Game-Changer'

The Biden administration has been trying to isolate Russia since the start of the Ukraine War, but Moscow has never been stronger — militarily, diplomatically, and economically

IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT: Putin’s relationship with North Korea weakens the U.S.’s grip on the Indo-Pacific

Scott Ritter, the former UN weapons inspector, said in an interview with Judge Andrew Napolitano’s “Judging Freedom” podcast that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s trip to North Korea this week was a “game-changer” for Pyongyang and Moscow.

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“This is a game changer,” he said. “I'm not abusing this term. This changes everything… fundamentally changes everything.”

The Biden administration has been trying to isolate Russia since the start of the Ukraine War, but Moscow has never been stronger — militarily, diplomatically, and economically.

Putin and Kim Jong Un, the North Korean leader, met in Pyongyang on Wednesday and agreed to a defense pact that would compel both countries to come to the assistance of the other “without delay” to provide “military and other assistance,” The Associated Press reported, citing the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.

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The move comes just weeks after Putin said he is considering considering providing weapons to countries at odds with the West. He said these weapons could be on par with the weapons the West provided Ukraine.

Ritter noted that the U.S. has been engaged in a so-called pivot to the Pacific in hopes to surround China, with the centerpiece of that mission to build up the trilateral relationship between Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo, “all premised on the notion of the continued isolation of North Korea.”

“North Korea is no longer isolated,” he said.

He said it was widely thought that China would be the first to break the trade barriers with North Korea, but Beijing hesitated because it didn’t want to “incur the wrath of the collective West” vis-a-vis economic sanctions.

“Russia doesn’t care anymore about sanctions,” he said. “They bore Russia. In fact, the more you sanction Russia, the stronger Russia gets. So Russia is beyond caring and so, too, is North Korea. Two nations that simply do not care about anything the West does have come together to strengthen each other.”

He said North Korea is often mocked in satellite images that compare Seoul and Pyongyang at night, making the northern country look like it is in darkness.

“In three to five year, when they turn that on [the satellite image], the North is going to be awash in light. This fundamentally changes the reality of North Korea. They will now be plugged into one of the fastest, most resilient, growing economies in the world…the Russian economy… that is serving as one of the heartbeats of this multilateral empire being built called BRICS,” he said.

He also said Japan and South Korea can no longer go to war with North Korea, because the war would involve Russia.