Russia Seizes an Opportunity in North Korea
Russia, which shares a relatively short border but a long history with North Korea, is strengthening its economic and financial ties with its neighbor. 
May 5, 2017 Stratfor

ロシアは北朝鮮に対して好機を掴んでいる。
ロシアは北朝鮮と比較的短い国境に接しているが、その歴史は長く、経済的にも財務的にもその結びつきを強めている。

Moscow will continue to expand its economic and financial cooperation with North Korea, which in recent years has included transportation networks, fuel supplies and employment. Russia, which sees its growing ties with North Korea as another way to build leverage it can use in negotiations with the West, will not wield that influence just yet. While it cannot replace China as North Korea’s primary partner, Russia is developing the capacity to play spoiler to many U.S. plans to increase pressure on North Korea. 

wield：影響力を行使する
spoiler：じゃまをする

As North Korea's relationship with China grows more difficult, Russia has increased its focus on the Korean Peninsula, ready to forge stronger ties with its isolated neighbor. Beijing is considering increasing pressure on North Korea to dial back its nuclear weapons program, and Russia stands ready to take advantage of the conflict. But though deepening its involvement with North Korea could equip the Kremlin with additional tools to use in its wider confrontation with the West, Russia could not hope to match Chinese influence in North Korea. Yet, Russia could still limit the pressure China is able to exert on North Korea. 

equip：身につけさせる
confrontation：対立
match：対等である

North Korea and Russia, which share a scant 17 kilometers (11 miles) of border, have a long history of close relations. After the post-World War II division of the Korean Peninsula by the Soviet Union and the United States, an attempt at reunification in the late 1940s failed, and the Koreas became a prime proxy battleground pitting the communist North against the U.S.-aligned South. The Soviets helped to build up the military forces and security services of the new North Korean government, ensuring its stability and forging a governing style that remains in force. Soviet-era military equipment is still in use in North Korea today. 

scant：わずか
aligned：連合した 
ensuring：保証する
remains in force：効力を持ち続ける

The cult of personality that surrounded Soviet leader Josef Stalin provided the model for the structure of North Korea's government, a model retained today under Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un. That legacy, and the fact that its own leader, Vladimir Putin, enjoys similar popular power, is one reason the Kremlin continues to back the leadership in Pyongyang. 

cult of personality：個人崇拝

Along with ideological legacies, North Korea and the Soviet Union shared strong economic links. The Soviet Union was a key North Korean economic partner during the Cold War and accounted for nearly half of North Korea's foreign trade in the 1970s and 1980s. In addition, the Soviet Union provided trade, credit and technical assistance to North Korea. Joint projects between the two supplied North Korea with 70 percent of its electricity, 50 percent of its chemical fertilizers and 40 percent of the ferrous metals its economy used. And as part of its debt payment to Moscow, Pyongyang sent North Korean prisoners to work in Siberia. 

ferrous：鉄の

After the Soviet Union collapsed, Russian trade with North Korea crumbled, and all joint projects were halted. Moscow, caught in a firestorm of economic and financial issues in the 1990s, began to demand hard currency trade and the lines of credit the Soviets were able to extend to North Korea dried up. In the 25 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian trade shrank to 1 percent of North Korea's foreign trade. Into that breach stepped China, who accounts for 90 percent of North Korea's foreign trade. 

crumbled：崩れる
firestorm：火の嵐
breach：裂け目

When Putin came to power in 2000, he saw the strategic value of maintaining good relations with North Korea — as well as ways Russia could manipulate its position in the region to pressure the country. Just as China does not want to see North Korea's government destabilized, it is in Russia's interests to maintain North Korea as a buffer state between it and Western-allied South Korea and Japan. 

manipulate：操作する

Putin's government has criticized North Korea's nuclear weapons tests and ballistic missile programs. Russia participated in the six-party nuclear disarmament talks along with China, the United States, Japan and North and South Korea. In 2014, Russia joined in on levying sanctions — albeit limited — against North Korea under Western pressure, halting supplies of ships, helicopters and minerals in response to its continued nuclear tests. However, neither China nor Russia has cut their economic or military ties with North Korea or has hidden their violations of sanctions against the North. And both governments are aligned in opposing expanded sanctions on North Korea and seeking a military intervention or regime change there. 

aligned：連携する

After Japan and the West levied sanctions on Russia for its involvement in the Ukraine conflict and its annexation of Crimea, Russia's view of North Korea shifted. Russia began quietly laying the groundwork that would strengthen its ties to North Korea, thus increasing its global political leverage should it need it. Russia can never replace China's influence over North Korea, but it could interfere with measures employed by China, the United States or their allies to try to pressure Pyongyang. Moscow's evolving position has won praise from Pyongyang, whose Korean Central News Agency has named Russia as the country friendliest to North Korea, supplanting China. This show Pyongyang's interest in attracting increased Russian support at a time when Moscow needs as much political leverage as it can get. 

should it need it：北朝鮮がロシアを必要とするのであれば
interfere：干渉する
evolving ：発展させる
supplanting：に取って代わる

アメリカがやっと中国を説得して、北朝鮮に制裁を駆け出した矢先に、ロシアが北朝鮮に食指を伸ばしてきた。ロシアはソ連当時、北朝鮮に対して経済政治において大きな大きな役割を果たしてきた。ソ連が崩壊してその余裕がなくなってしまったのだが、近年、中国と一緒に制裁をしてきているが、それは表向きだけの話だ。西側に対しての切り札として考えている。

今まで、ロシアが北朝鮮に関心をもているとは気が付かなかったが、たしかにそうかもしれない。プーチンはこの北朝鮮を手懐けておけば、西側との交渉に有利にことを運べる。そうした考えは中国も一緒だ。この北朝鮮問題は４カ国の問題になってきた。

木曜日。いよいよ６月だ。ではまた明日。