North Korea and Russia on Monday inaugurated their first road bridge, in a carefully choreographed display of friendship. The structure, which crosses the Tumen River, was presented by the two countries as a milestone in deepening their strategic partnership.
The first trucks, adorned with flags, crossed the two-lane, one-kilometer-long bridge slowly, as Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and North Korean Premier Pak Thae Song participated by video conference to address workers and officials from the two countries.
The construction of the new bridge, which had been discussed for years, began in April last year, after the project was agreed during a visit by President Vladimir Putin to North Korea in 2024. There are already direct air and rail connections between Moscow and Pyongyang, but until Monday there was no adequate road link. Instead, since 1959, and under a special agreement, planks were laid over a nearby railway bridge, which for decades was the sole crossing point of the border, to allow the circulation of vehicles between the two countries.
“I am convinced that the expansion of cross-border transport infrastructure will give a strong boost to the development of commercial, economic, scientific, technological, and cultural cooperation,” Mishustin said. The premier added that relations between Moscow and Pyongyang are “at an unprecedented level” and described the inauguration of the bridge as “a truly historic event.”
The construction of the bridge was not just an engineering project, he said, but “a new symbol of friendship.”
Mishustin stated that up to 300 vehicles could cross the bridge daily and that it will be connected to Russia’s federal road network, with easier access to the corridor of transport that links Vladivostok, in the Russian Far East, to Saint Petersburg. Trucks will begin using the bridge immediately for freight transport, the Russian government said. By the end of this year, the structure will be fully operational and could also be used for passenger transport.
The bridge was built near the existing “Friendship Bridge,” a railway link inaugurated in 1959 after the Korean War. Symbolically, the new structure is named Yakov Novichenko, a Red Army soldier whom Pyongyang credits with saving the life of the first North Korean leader, Kim Il Sung, in 1946 by intercepting a grenade thrown at him and others.
The ties between the two countries have strengthened since the start of the war in Ukraine, in 2022, with Pyongyang sending thousands of soldiers to the Kursk region in Russia to help repel a Ukrainian incursion in 2024.
Mishustin referred to this in his speech on Monday, mentioning “the Korean heroes who, even recently, fought side by side with our soldiers and defended Russian soil.”
