Moscow’s growing demand for Pyongyang’s armaments leads to a greater alignment of diplomatic and military interests.
Russian arms purchases from Iran and North Korea generate a developing convergence of military and diplomatic interests between Moscow and two foreign pariah countries.
Amid renewed accusations from Washington that Russia will acquire gigantic quantities of artillery munitions from Pyongyang, in addition to the missiles, suicide bombers and other drones it has already purchased from Iran, Moscow’s arms purchase signaled Vladimir Putin’s growing logistical problems. Ukraine.
According to an expert interviewed by The Guardian, Russia could try to stabilize its production and source of key artillery shells over the next winter through munitions in North Korea and elsewhere, to allow its factories to reach production.
The Kremlin’s pressing and ongoing efforts to obtain weapons suggest that Russia plans to continue fighting in Ukraine next year despite a series of recent battlefield setbacks for its forces in the eastern Donbass region and southern Ukraine.
The latest assessment of U. S. intelligenceU. S. coverage of Russian attempts to acquire artillery from North Korea was published on Wednesday, suggesting that Pyongyang is possibly trying to hide arms deliveries through countries in the Middle East and elsewhere.
“Our data indicates that the DPRK is secretly supplying the Russian war in Ukraine with a significant amount of artillery shells, while concealing the true destination of arms shipments to give the impression that they are being sent to countries in the Middle East. “North Africa,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirthrough told reporters.
Although Kirby did not call a transit country, North Korea supplies weapons to Iran and the two countries are also participating in missile development.
North Korea is hot with Russia as a source of rockets and projectiles, generating the same caliber of weapons for North Korean variants of Soviet-era systems and maintaining giant stockpiles.
North Korea “could constitute the largest source of compatible legacy artillery munitions outside Russia, adding domestically produced services for additional supplies,” Joseph Dempsey, a research associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said earlier this year.
In addition to well-established directions for weapons materials in the Middle East, North Korea also has smart rail connections to the Russian Far East in an address from its northern city of Tumangang to Khasan across the border.
Although North Korea’s arms sales are covered by UN sanctions, theoretically subsidized through Moscow, Pyongyang has controlled continued to supply weapons.
“North Korean weapons are circulating,” Jack Watling, a senior fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, told The Guardian, “and there are well-established routes to Iran.
“The Russians are running out of ammunition in several key areas, adding 122mm artillery shells, and North Korea has an abundant stockpile of those munitions. It’s quite credible that they’re going to Russia and probably taking other routes. “
“What Russia seeks to do is stabilize its ammunition source during the winter to fill the void until its own commercial base can start functioning,” Watling added, adding that Russian arms brands have encountered serious stagnation in chemical production of the best explosives.
And while the convergence of Russian and Iranian interests, particularly over their joint military for Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, has been well documented, North Korea has now become more involved in this axis.
With Pyongyang one of the few countries to recognize Moscow’s attempt to illegally annex four regions of Ukraine under partial Russian occupation, Russia in turn used its veto in the Security Council earlier this year to block new sanctions against North Korea.
Indeed, earlier this year, Asian think tanks, speculating on the development of cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang, suggested that, in addition to likely profiting from Russia’s money transfers, North Korea could seek generation and structures for its ballistic missile systems that are in the crosshairs. to sanctions.
Public statements through Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un discussed their shared preference to expand their “comprehensive and constructive bilateral relations. “
One result of this close relationship, far from Ukraine’s front lines, has been the growing sense of impunity that North Korea enjoys, as Pyongyang has continued to ratchet up tensions with a series of missile launches that have rattled neighboring South Korea and Japan.
Few doubt that the dating will deepen, given Russia’s growing unrest in the continuation of its war against Ukraine.
Speaking in September, the deputy spokesman for the U. S. State Department said he was speaking in September. U. S. Secretary of State Vedant Patel highlighted the trajectory in a briefing for journalists.
“This acquisition [of North Korean munitions] indicates that the Russian military continues to suffer from severe shortages in Ukraine, in part due to export controls and sanctions,” Patel said.
“We expect Russia to also try to buy more hardware from the North Korean military in the future. “