The arms supplied by North Korea to Russia as UK sends satellite images to UN

Satellite imagery that appears to show cargo shipments between Russia and North Korea has added to growing speculation that Pyongyang is providing military aid to Moscow despite international sanctions.

The UK has now given a UN panel of experts satellite images of three Russian ships loading containers in the North Korean port of Najin, the Guardian reported.

While it is unclear what the containers were carrying, Western and Ukrainian officials have accused North Korea of supplying missiles and ammunition to Russia to use in its war in Ukraine.

John Nilsson-Wright, head of the Japan and Koreas Programme at the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Geopolitics, said there has been “fairly strong evidence” that North Korea has dispatched some form of missiles to Russia, which have been used to supplement Moscow’s military action in Ukraine.

“We also know that North Korean labour has been provided in the Russian Far East, which generates currency and income for the DPRK [North Korea],” he told i.

Dr Nilsson-Wright pointed to how a rare meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un last September was “opportunity for further discussion about the possibility of further collaboration”.

Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un at the Vostochny cosmodrome in the Russian Far East in September (Photo: Artyom Geodakyan via AP)

“Certainly we saw circumstantial evidence that suggests that Russia might be minded to assist North Korea, perhaps in developing – it could be satellite technology, or long range ballistic missile capabilities,” he added.

“And we had [North Korean foreign minister] Choe Son-hui meeting her Russian counterpart in Moscow last week.

“Relations between the two countries therefore have become closer, and the potential of some active exchange of military assistance and hardware has been part of those discussions.”

Is North Korea supplying arms to Russia?

Russia and North Korea have not immediately commented on the report, but Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov previously rejected the accusations, saying they were not based on evidence.

The satellite images of the three Russian ships – Maya, Angara and Maria – at the North Korean port were taken between September and December last year. They showed the vessels, which are subject to US sanctions, loaded with containers before being sent to Russian ports in the Far East, the Guardian reported.

A UN diplomat told the newspaper that the images and other evidence submitted to the UN sanctions committee “should trigger a full investigation into Russia and DPRK’s [North Korea’s] flagrant breaking of international sanctions”.

It comes after Mr Putin told Ms Choe that he is ready to visit Pyongyang in the near future, according to North Korean and Russian media.

Mr Putin last travelled to Pyongyang on an official visit in 2000, when he met Kim Jong Il, the father of Kim Jong Un.

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The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War think tank reported on Sunday that Russia is likely to have stepped up cooperation with North Korea “as part of an effort to procure more artillery ammunition from abroad amid Russian munition shortages”.

The head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (GUR), Lt-Gen Kyrylo Budanov, said North Korea provided a “significant amount of artillery ammunition”, which allowed Russia to “breathe a little”.

“Without their help, the situation would have been catastrophic [for Russia],” he told the Financial Times.

Maj-Gen Vadym Skibitskyi, deputy head of the GUR, said Russia received one million rounds of artillery ammunition from North Korea between September and November last year.

“This is precisely the deficit that Moscow has in terms of shells, and cannot cover at the expense of its own production,” he told RBC-Ukraine news agency.

The White House said earlier this month that its intelligence indicated that North Korea “recently provided Russia with ballistic missile launchers and several [dozen] ballistic missiles”.

White House national security spokesperson John Kirby claimed Russian forces launched at least one of these ballistic missiles into Ukraine on 30 December, which appeared to have landed in an open field in the southern Zaporizhzhia region.

He added that on 2 January, Russia launched “multiple North Korean ballistic missiles into Ukraine”, and that Washington was assessing the “impacts of these additional missiles”.

Dr Nilsson-Wright said that while the accusations of an arms deal between Russia and North Korea remain ambiguous, the West are taking the issue “very seriously”.

“There certainly seems to be circumstantial evidence of closer relations, and the idea of military hardware being sent from North Korea to Russia does not seem far-fetched by any means.”