Putin and Kim's increasingly cozy alliance could pose risk to the West: ANALYSIS
A closer alliance between Russia and North Korea could present new and challenging security threats to the West, analysts warn. Washington officials have depicted President Vladimir Putin's rare face-to-face meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un as an embarrassment for the Russian leader, saying the Kremlin has been forced to ask for help of a lesser power to sustain its war effort in Ukraine thanks to economic pressure from the West, analysts told ABC News. But analysts tracking both of the increasingly isolated and volatile rulers say that while it might be true that export restrictions and other measures have forced Putin to engage with Kim in the hopes of refilling his armories, a closer alliance between the countries could present new and challenging security threats to the West. Bruce Bennett, a defense researcher at the RAND corporation, says that Russia could soon be a boon to North Korea's nuclear program, providing Pyongyang with the technological know-how i...