U.S. Says North Korea Sent More Than 10,000 Containers of Munitions and Supplies to Russia

The U.S. State Department accused North Korea of shipping more than 10,000 containers of munitions and related materials to Russia since September, helping to keep the Russian army stockpiled for its Ukraine invasion.

The State Department described these shipments in a fact sheet accompanying the announcement of sanctions against more than 500 individuals and entities linked to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and to the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Two entities designated for sanctions are a Russian company that runs a terminal at the port of Vostochny and the Russian naval facility at Vladivostok. Both were implicated in receiving the shipments of munitions from North Korea.

Fears that North Korea might help resupply the Russian army arose when North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un visited Russia in September. Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin met at the cosmodrome in Vostochny, the same port city mentioned in the new U.S. sanctions package.

Kim pledged his support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine during the meeting, and Putin promised to help North Korea develop its “satellite technology” — in other words, its long-range missiles. Analysts noted North Korea was sitting on a vast stockpile of old Soviet munitions that could be useful to the Russians in Ukraine, giving Kim something valuable to trade for the technology he desired.

The White House immediately accused North Korea of beginning arms shipments to Russia, including a copious amount of artillery shells. U.S. intelligence furnished photos of containers being loaded onto a Russian-flagged ship in Najin, North Korea, and then transferred to railroad freight upon arriving in Russia. The contents of those containers could not be definitively established with the declassified material released to the public.

By mid-October, the White House estimated 1,000 containers of munitions had made the journey from North Korea to Russia. On Friday, the State Department said that amount had increased tenfold.

Early optimism that Russia must be doing poorly in Ukraine if it needed to beg North Korea for ammunition has given way to alarm that North Korea had a lot of shells for sale at discount prices. Bloomberg News on Friday quoted U.S. and South Korean intelligence estimates that North Korea has shipped more than two million rounds of 152mm artillery shells to Russia, raking in billions of dollars in profit — or the equivalent value in Russian technology.

The White House also said North Korea has provided Russia with dozens of ballistic missiles. Some of them were allegedly used in attacks on Ukraine in late December and early January.

Both Pyongyang and Moscow have denied the munition shipments, which the State Department noted violate multiple U.N. Security Council (UNSC) resolutions, some of which Russia voted in favor of.