The UN Security Council imposed tough economic sanctions against the DPRK in response to Pyongyang's nuclear and missile tests in 2016-2017. They placed considerable strain on economic relations with North Korea. Prior to the introduction of the new international restrictions, economic relations between the Russian Federation and the DPRK had been mainly represented by trade, the Hasan-Rajin joint transport and logistics project, temporary labor migration of North Korean citizens to work in Russia, and humanitarian assistance from the Russian Federation. New investment cooperation projects had also been discussed (for example, in infrastructure and energy spheres), as well as the construction of an motor-way bridge between the two countries. The article evaluates the consequences of the UN Security Council sanctions against the DPRK for the main areas of Russian-North Korean economic relations. Moscow managed to exclude the Khasan-Rajin railway project from the UN Security Council resolutions as the Russian side had invested more than $ 250 million in it. Since 2018 the joint venture, however, has faced serious problems in ensuring the necessary volume of freight to handle. Due to the UNSC sanctions, mutually beneficial cooperation in attracting workers from the DPRK to Russia had to be terminated by the end of 2019. At the same time, bilateral trade, which cut in half in 2018, showed a yoy growth of more than 40 % in 2019, primarily due to an increase in Russian exports. The supply of the Russian humanitarian aid also continued.

Zakharova Liudmila Vladimirovna, Candidate of Sciences (Economics), Senior Researcher, Center for Korean Studies, Institute of Far Eastern Studies RAS, 32, Nakhimovsky av., Moscow, 117997, Russian Federation, e-mail: ludmila_hph@rambler.ru

Zakharova L.V. Implications of UN Security Council Sanctions for Russia – North Korea Economic Relations. The Bulletin of Irkutsk State University. Series Political Science and Religion Studies, 2020, vol. 34, pp. 67-74. https://doi.org/10.26516/2073-3380.2020.34.67 (in Russian)

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