Quick Take: Kim’s New Year’s Greetings to Putin
North Korean media’s readout of the annual year-end party plenary meeting in 2024 revealed relatively little about its defense and foreign policy goals for 2025. Despite the dearth of details, references to a “strategy for the toughest anti-U.S. counteraction” and North Korea’s achievements in building “a righteous multi-polar world”—an expression the North typically uses in connection with its cooperation with Russia—seem to suggest Pyongyang will maintain its hardline policy toward the United States and continue to deepen ties with Moscow this year.
Kim Jong Un’s unusual New Year’s message to the Russian president, published just days after the Party plenary meeting closed, reinforces this notion.[1]
According to North Korean media’s summary of Kim’s message, he seemed to indicate a new level of military-to-military relationship between the two countries. He offered “best wishes to the fraternal Russian people and all the service personnel of the brave Russian army in the name of his own, the Korean people and all the service personnel of the armed forces of the DPRK .” [Emphasis added.]
In the past, Kim gave a nod to the Russian military without linking the two armed forces. For example, in his last message to Putin in October 2024, Kim expressed “our [North Korea’s]” support for the “army and people of Russia.” During a meeting with the visiting Russian defense minister in November, Kim voiced support of “the DPRK government, army and people” for “the Russian Federation” policy of defending national sovereignty, not the Russian military itself.
Two additional changes stand out in this New Year’s greeting. First, Kim’s characterization of his relationship to Putin has an added dimension, referring to him as his “closest friend and comrade.”[2] By comparison, Kim’s message to the Russian president in October called him only his “closest comrade.” Second, Kim described North Korea and Russia as “sworn friends,” an unusual term for the North to use in connection with Russia, at least in modern history.
In contrast, as per usual practice, North Korean media simply listed Xi Jinping and his wife as being among those foreign dignitaries who sent New Year’s cards to Kim Jong Un.
Whether Pyongyang’s decision to offer little information on its defense and foreign policy direction for the New Year was driven more by a desire to maintain policy flexibility ahead of Trump’s second term or simply keep the outside world guessing about its intentions is unclear. A close examination of North Korean official statements and media commentary—past and future—will be needed to help fill the gaps. Kim’s latest letter to Putin is just one indication; more will be revealed in the coming months.
- [1]
North Korean media published a summary of Kim’s New Year’s letter to Putin four days after they carried the full text of Putin’s New Year’s greetings to Kim. The very fact that Putin and Kim exchanged New Year’s “congratulatory letters” this year is a break with past practice. Kim and the Russian president typically exchange New Year’s cards, and North Korean media do not elaborate on the content.
- [2]
“Closest friend and comrade” is a translation from the Korean version. The English version says “dearest friend and comrade,” rendering 가장 친근한 as “dearest.”