The war in Ukraine may be drawing two of America’s biggest adversaries closer together.
North Korea earlier this month formally recognized the embattled Donetsk and Luhansk provinces in Ukraine as independent republics, joining Russia and its close ally Syria as the only governments in the world to accept those claims and, in the process, join the effort to rewrite Ukraine’s borders.
The geopolitical choices made by dictators Bashar Assad of Syria and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un carry little weight on the international stage, and so far no other nations — not even Russia’s closest regional partner, Belarus — have followed suit on Luhansk and Donetsk.