The United Nations Security Council confirmed on Tuesday that the Russian government had begun to, once again, ship oil to communist North Korea after a nearly three-year pause, prompting experts to suggest Moscow traded oil for weapons.
North Korea, one of Russia’s closest international allies, has faced repeated accusations of selling Russia weapons to be used in the ongoing, near-decade-long invasion and colonization of Ukraine. The dictatorship under leader Kim Jong-un has vocally supported the “special operation” to oust Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which began in February 2022 and recognized Russia’s illegal colonization (“annexation”) of multiple Ukrainian regions.
North Korea had long maintained its status as a top Russian oil customer. Russia has faced widespread accusations for years of violating international sanctions on the repressive communist regime to continue shipping oil to North Korea. Following the beginning of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic in central China, however, Kim ordered a total lockdown of the country to keep the disease out, including shutting down the notoriously porous border between China and North Korea on the Yalu River. The lockdown caused dramatic shortages in fuel and basic goods, especially food and medicine. Anonymous sources within the country managed to get the news out of starvation concerns and an increase in crime tied to the shortages.
The North Korean government claimed that it did not log a single case of Wuhan coronavirus infection between January 2020 and April 2022. Following documentation of the first confirmed case, Pyongyang abruptly claimed to have confirmed upwards of 1 million cases in a month, prompting speculation around the world that the Kim regime was falsifying its statistics.
Kim appeared to ease lockdown restrictions this year. An official statement from the Russian embassy in Pyongyang in January announced that the North Korean government ended the “intensified anti-epidemic period” that began in 2020.
That month, according to the Security Council information published on Tuesday, Russia shipped 44,655 barrels of oil to North Korea. Russia also reportedly shipped 67,300 barrels of oil to its southern neighbor between December 2022 and April 2023. The last known shipments of oil from Russia to North Korea were documented in August 2020.
South Korea’s JoongAng Daily reported the new shipments, noting that the Security Council requires its members to report any “supplies, sales and transfers of all refined petroleum products to North Korea.” The U.N. body also bans oil sales to North Korea above 500,000 barrels a year, a sanction imposed in response to North Korea pursuing an illegal nuclear weapons program and regularly threatening to bomb South Korea and the United States.
Radio Free Asia (RFA), reporting on the North Korea shipments, observed on Tuesday that, given Western sanctions on Russia’s oil industry, Moscow is desperately seeking new markets open to its supply. The Russian government has done well in selling discounted oil to its neighbors – notably China, India, and Pakistan — and has increased crude oil sales to Saudi Arabia, which reportedly refines the oil and sells it for a profit. North Korea nonetheless offers more opportunities for the cornered Russian market.
It also offers, experts told RFA, a potential opportunity to supply Russian troops with North Korean weapons.
“I would guess that [the oil shipments] may be Russia fulfilling its end of the deal in exchange for North Korea providing weapons and lethal aid to the Russian troops in the ongoing war with Ukraine,” former CIA analyst Soo Kim told RFA.
“At this stage, Russia is in need of military support to offset its deficiencies in its battle against Ukraine,” Kim continued. “North Korea is willing to provide lethal aid probably because [North Korean leader] Kim [Jong Un] can receive energy and food assistance in exchange.”
An alleged declassified U.S. intelligence report accused North Korea in September of selling artillery shells and rockets to Russia. In January, White House National Security Council (NSC) communications director John Kirby told reporters North Korea was supplying Russia’s paramilitary Wagner Group.
“As we have said publicly, North Korea delivered infantry rockets and missiles into Russia for use by Wagner toward the end of last year,” Kirby said. “We obviously condemn North Korea’s actions, and we urge North Korea to cease these deliveries to Wagner immediately. And we are going further, by taking action against Wagner itself.”
North Korean officials have vehemently denied the accusations.
“Trying to tarnish the image of (North Korea) by fabricating a non-existent thing is a grave provocation that can never be allowed and that cannot but trigger its reaction,” Kwon Jong Gun, director general of the North Korean Department of U.S. Affairs, proclaimed in January.
Kim Jong-un sent a message to Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Monday in support of the invasion of Ukraine, marking Russia’s national day on Tuesday, the government propaganda outlet the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) revealed.
The message appreciated that the strong and wise Russian people have made proud history and culture for a long time since they took their deep roots in their vast land…It said that thanks to the correct decision and guidance of the Russian president, the struggle of the Russian people to foil the hostile forces’ escalating threats and challenges to deprive Russia of its sovereignty, security and peaceful life has entered a new decisive phase.
Justice is sure to win and the Russian people will continue to add glory to the history of victory, the tradition peculiar to them.
[North Koreans] are extending full support and solidarity to the Russian people in their all-out struggle for implementing the sacred cause to preserve the sovereign rights, development and interests of their country against the imperialists’ high-handed and arbitrary practices and to realize the international justice.
The message also marked Tuesday as Russia’s national day.
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