North Korea appears to have started construction on a road bridge to Russia after years of consultations, according to NK Pro analysis of satellite imagery, in another sign of efforts to follow through with economic agreements the two sides made in June.

Planet Labs imagery shows North Korea started to build a new road toward the border between Nov. 6 and 11, directly across from an existing road on the Russian side.

The new dirt road reached the Tumen River by Nov. 15, but there were no signs of bridge construction yet or activity on the Russian side in medium-resolution Planet Labs imagery as of Nov. 25.

Russia and North Korea reached an agreement to build the bridge on the sidelines of the Kim Jong Un-Vladimir Putin summit in Pyongyang in June, with the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) declaring plans for “building a motorcar bridge over the River Tuman on the DPRK-Russia border.”

The new road running up to the river is about 1,640 feet (500 meters) east of the existing railway bridge linking the two countries, which has facilitated growing trade this year, possibly including sanctioned goods like weapons.

The apparent start of construction comes after years of delays, as the two sides held serious working-level talks on the project as early as March 2018.

Discussions continued frequently throughout 2019 as well, but fizzled likely due to Kim Jong Un closing North Korea’s borders at the start of the pandemic in 2020.

Soon after this year’s June agreement, Russian former senior diplomat Georgy Toloraya told NK News that he was “not even sure how useful … the motorway bridge will be because there’s not enough cargo to carry over it.” 

He added that it may prove “profitable in the long run” and suggested its value might be more symbolic than practical.

The new bridge project also carries implications for China’s reported aspirations to gain access for its ships to the Sea of Japan via the Tuman River, which is now limited due to the relatively low-lying position of the existing rail bridge. China is cut off from the sea by the 7 mile-wide (11 km) strip of Russian territory at the North Korean border.

It remains possible that the new road bridge will also include railroad tracks, potentially to replace the existing aging bridge that features just a single track. Such a situation would likely entail trilateral talks on the project between the DPRK, Russia and China.

Meanwhile, North Korea has a recent history of failing to use new cross-border bridges with China even after they are built.

The most well-known example is the New Yalu River Bridge on the opposite end of the border near the west coast, which China spent $350 million to build in 2013 but which North Korea didn’t even build a connecting highway to until 2019. 

The bridge still has not opened to this day, though China has continued to prepare its new customs complex on its side this year.

Another bridge China built in 2018 to the North Korean border town of Namyang remains unopened as well.

Edited by Bryan Betts