The US is surprised by the speed of Russia's new alliance building.
The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed intelligence sources, said Washington had failed to anticipate Moscow's security partnerships with Beijing, Pyongyang and other US "rivals."
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a strategic partnership and mutual defense treaty with North Korea on June 19, following Putin’s trip to China last month that prompted a US policymaker to declare that decades of US efforts to separate Moscow and Beijing had been futile.
“The speed and depth of expanding security ties between America’s rivals has sometimes surprised American intelligence analysts. Russia and other countries have put aside historical conflicts to jointly oppose what they see as a U.S.-dominated global system,” the WSJ wrote on June 19.
Washington has accused Pyongyang of “sending workers to Russia to help with its weapons production line,” as well as selling missiles and artillery shells to Moscow for use against Ukraine.
According to WSJ magazine, the US also believes that China has facilitated the Russian military industry to circumvent Western sanctions, by providing “large quantities of dual-use equipment, including machine tools, microelectronics… optics for tanks and armored vehicles, as well as turbo engines for cruise missiles”. They also accuse China of helping Russia “improve satellite and other space capabilities for use in Ukraine”.
For its part, Beijing has rejected the US accusations, calling the sanctions unilateral and illegal, and accusing Washington of hypocrisy in fueling the conflict by arming and supplying Kiev.
According to RT, anonymous Pentagon officials told the US Magazine that Iran has become “Russia’s main arms supplier,” accusing Tehran of helping to build a factory in the Tatarstan Region capable of producing thousands of Shahed-136 drones.
Unnamed Americans told the WSJ that Russia’s “expanded security relationship” with North Korea, China and Iran is not a NATO-like military alliance but rather “a series of bilateral exchanges.” They added that the technology transfer risks improving the long-term capabilities of all the countries involved, thereby threatening the United States.
Earlier this month, at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Mr. Putin announced that Russia’s economic relations strategy with the “Global South” would include partnerships based on “technology and competence transfer rather than market control.”
Moscow has also signalled it will turn to the “Global South”, which has been alienated by the West’s behaviour in the Ukraine conflict. In February, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said efforts by the US and its allies to isolate Russia had “completely failed”.
