It’s a big shift, but from a NK/SK standpoint probably the bigger issue is what exactly NK got in exchange for the massive ammunition deliveries and the tens of thousands of troops they sent to die in Ukraine.
Whatever it is, it must be pretty big, perhaps advanced missile technology, maybe even new types of nuclear weapons. Either way it’s bound to significantly change the balance of power on the Korean Peninsula.
How about just basic energy inputs like fuel and fertilizer? This is a country that is so abysmally poor the state has a feces collection quota. Peasants must collect their daily dumps and give them to the state for use in the field or suffer the wrath of the local DPRK gangster.[0]
Perhaps that could have been true for the shipments of shells, but I can't see NK sending tens of thousands of troops to a meatgrinder that they have absolutely no stake in just for some fertilizer and oil. NK has the ability to demand much more strategic things and I'd be virtually certain that they have.
Whatever it is, it must be pretty big, perhaps advanced missile technology, maybe even new types of nuclear weapons. Either way it’s bound to significantly change the balance of power on the Korean Peninsula.