01 September 2024. US intelligence claims to have new evidence of Russia contacting North Korea to purchase weapons and artillery shells.
In exchange of these weaponry, Russia will provide necessary food supplies and other resources.
It’s the latest allegation against Russia, which is craving weaponry but constrained by sanctions and limitations on exports, is turning into a “Rogue” nation to keep waging its 13 month old invasion.
In March, the US claimed to have obtained information confirming that Russia was seeking additional ammunition from Pyongyang in exchange for food aid.
Around the same time, sanctions were imposed on a Slovakian individual. Washington claimed that they attempted to set up the sale of more than two dozen different types of North Korean weapons and ammunition to Russia.
Putin Providing Food and Resources to Acquire Weapons
Regardless of the dire food situation North Korea has been facing for 11 years of Kim Jong-un’s rule, experts are not anticipating a famine catastrophic deaths. Earlier this month, Kim has Vowed to work on the government regulation regarding agriculture and take necessary steps to improve grain production.
On Monday, Kim reportedly made the pledge in a greeting to the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, honouring Russia’s national day, North Korea’s state news agency KCNA reported.
Kim sought for “Closer strategic cooperation” with Russia, criticising the “hegemonic policy” along with “high-handedness” from the United States as well as Western nations.
It was confirmed by the State Department that North korea has delivered weapons, which includes missiles and rockets, to the Russian government’s mercenary group Wagner, back in November 2022. Although, Pyongyang refuses that it had sold weapons to Russia to aid the war against Ukraine.
Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, stated last month that US intelligence implied that China was thinking about supplying Russia munitions and ammunition, however White House officials don’t have any valid proof of China actually carrying out the weapon delivery.
The Russian representative to Pyongyang reportedly offered that North Korea deploy employees to two Russian-controlled districts in eastern Ukraine to aid in the reconstruction of the region’s war-damaged infrastructure.
Despite United Nations sanctions, Alexander Matsegora suggested there might be “a lot of opportunities” for economic collaboration between the North and the self-declared people’s republics in Luhansk and Donetsk in Ukraine’s Donbas region. Only North Korea, Syria, and Russia have acknowledged the independence of the Russian-controlled regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine.
The newly formed North Korea-Russia agreement, which has not yet been finalised, is reported by Kirby to be centred on Mkrtychev. He continued by saying that the US lacked proof that Mkrtychev was engaged in the earlier delivery of weaponry to the Russian Wagner Group, that had been at the centre of an extended war for the city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine.
Treasury said North Korean officials and Mkrtychev worked together from the late 2022 to the beginning of 2024 to obtain more than two dozens of weapons and ammunition for Russia in return for commercial aeroplane, raw . materials and resources to be transferred to North Korea.
In the trade, Mkrtychev collaborated alongside a Russian individual to search for commercial planes for the delivery of items to North Korea.
The UN sanctions preventing North Korea from importing or exporting weapons would be violated by any weaponry deal with Russia.
