The first road bridge connecting Russia and North Korea has opened, allowing the two countries to more easily move goods and passengers between the border across the Tyumen River.
Pyongyang state media said the bridge would be used for “personnel exchange, tourism and trade.”
But the Ukrainian OSINT group Truth Hounds said the bridge was intended “primarily to create a covert military logistics corridor” to support Russia in the war in Ukraine.
This is because relations between both countries improved after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, with Russia’s Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un previously promising that both countries would help each other in the event of “aggression” against either country.
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin called the bridge a “new symbol of friendship,” while North Korean Prime Minister Park Tae-song called it a “historic event.”
Up to 300 cars and 2,323 people can cross the bridge every day, TASS reports.
Satellite images released by the BBC in May this year showed the kilometer-long bridge, as well as several new access roads, a border checkpoint, supporting infrastructure and parking areas.
There are air links between the two countries, as well as rail links, but until now the only road link has been a makeshift arrangement whereby a special arrangement was made to place wooden planks on a railway bridge to allow cars to pass over it, Reuters reports.
The Russian government has said the bridge will initially be used to transport goods, Reuters reported, before opening for passenger traffic later this year.
The bridge will be “a powerful impetus for the further development of trade, economic, scientific, technical and cultural cooperation,” Mishustin said.
Speaking at the opening ceremony via video link, he described ties between Moscow and Pyongyang as being “at an unprecedented high level.”
The most immediate consequence could be an increase in arms exports to Russia.
Researchers at the South Korean spy agency estimate that North Korea has already shipped between $7 billion and $14 billion worth of rockets, missiles and artillery shells via ship. An estimated 11,000 North Korean troops are actively fighting Ukrainians in Russia.