Since 1991, few of Russia's bilateral relations have experienced a degree of change comparable to that between the Russian Federation and North Korea (the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, DPRK). After being identified as the only state with which post-Soviet Russia would avoid holding any form of meaningful relationship following the dissolution of the USSR, from early 1994 onwards Russia has sought to rebuild relations with the DPRK as part of a strategy of equidistance between the two Korean states. This goal has been realised in the Putin-Medvedev era. Military cooperation between Russia and North Korea has resumed, tens of thousands of North Koreans are employed in Russian industry and agriculture, and progress has been made on a major project to link the inter-Korean Railway to the trans-Siberian Railway. And whereas Russia had supported US policy towards North Korea's nuclear programme in the early 1990s, throughout the current Korean security crisis (2002-) Russia has been critical of US behaviour and far more supportive of Pyongyang. This thesis provides an analysis of Russian policy towards the DPRK and uses ontological security theory to explain Russian policy behaviour. While the existing literature emphasises the role of power in Russian policy towards North Korea, this thesis argues that the debate over identity and the competition for political influence between actors holding contending narratives concerning Russia's role in the world have played a vital part in Russian policy on the peninsula: Russian policy towards the DPRK has formed part of an effort to keep a particular post-Soviet narrative going, The thesis makes an original contribution to existing empirical knowledge of Russian policy towards the DPRK, and to the current theoretical debate pertaining to how we can understand Russian behaviour and policy objectives, both in the Northeast Asian region and the broader international system.