Savior Eun. North Korea increases supplies to Russia

Pyongyang increases arms supplies to Moscow to wage war against Ukraine and in return receives much-needed money and oil.

North Korea is supplying Russia with more and more ammunition and expanding its own weapons production to fuel the Kremlin’s war machine, writes The Wall Street Journal. In return, Pyongyang receives much-needed money and oil.

Uninterrupted supplies

According to official Washington and Seoul, the DPRK supplied Russia with approximately 20 thousand containers of ammunition, from low quality (for example, 122 mm and 152 mm artillery shells) to the latest Hwasong-11 class ballistic missiles .

Ukrainian officials told the publication that Kim Jong-un’s regime has supplied Vladimir Putin’s regime with a total of more than 5 million artillery shells and numerous missiles, including more than 100 Hwasong-11s.

As the WSJ wrote, millions of shells from Pyongyang allowed the army of the aggressor country of the Russian Federation to fill the shortage of ammunition caused by almost three years of intense fighting against the Ukrainian Defense Forces. Moreover, military equipment, including numerous rocket launch systems, is arriving from the DPRK to Russia by train – and the level of such transportation has reached record levels.

As Andrei Kovalenko, head of the Center for Countering Information under the National Security and Defense Council, said in a commentary publication, 60% of the artillery and mortar shells used by Russia against Ukraine now come from Pyongyang.

In addition, about a third of Russia’s ballistic strikes against Ukraine in 2024 will involve North Korean missiles, according to Ukrainian officials.

According to the WSJ, Pyongyang recently sent a 170mm self-propelled howitzer and a 240mm multiple launch rocket system to Russia.

As the publication writes, the artillery shells that North Korea first gave to the Russian Federation are ten years old – and this has raised suspicions that the Kim Jong-un regime is only getting rid of ammunition in this way.

However, now Pyongyang is providing the Kremlin with new ammunition – for example, 240-mm MLRS, and in addition, it is providing them with new guidance and control systems, the WSJ reported.

According to SI Analytics, a company specializing in satellite imaging, the largest 600-mm KN-25 missile launcher of the DPRK army was modernized in early 2024 with the support of Russian specialists.

More and more weapons are arriving from North Korea, by ship and by train, to resupply Russian troops who are burning massive amounts of weapons in battles with the Ukrainian Defense Forces, US and South Korean officials say. .

They increase production

North Korea’s roughly 200 munitions factories are operating at full capacity, and Russia has donated fuel and equipment to support Pyongyang’s weapons production.

At the factory on North Korea’s east coast that makes the Hwasong-11 class missile, construction is progressing rapidly on new buildings, including a building likely designed to house the plant’s cargo bulk, according to new satellite imagery from SI Analytics.

According to Damien Spleeters, director of expeditionary operations for the British organization Conflict Armament Research, North Korean factories are capable of producing batches of new Hwasong missiles in just a few months.

According to Elena Huseynova, a research fellow at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul, who analyzed South Korean intelligence reports, leaked documents and estimated prices for ammunition sold in past North Korean deals , the Kim Jong Un regime’s cooperation with the Kremlin may have brought North Korea as much as $5.5 billion since the start of Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine.

According to the expert, Russia can also separately pay Pyongyang up to $572 million per year for the troops provided by North Korea (currently about 12 thousand people) – and this figure is more than double the maximum volume of trade between countries (for example, in 2005) was almost $233 million).

There are also more people

North Korea is apparently preparing to transfer additional troops and weapons to the Russian Federation, including kamikaze drones, to launch a Russian war against Ukraine, Yonhap News Agency wrote, citing South Korea’s intelligence agency.

According to intelligence data, North Korea is preparing to rotate or increase the number of troops in Russia, where the DPRK could lose about 1,100 people.

According to Ukrainian data, the number of dead and wounded North Korean soldiers in the Kursk region has exceeded 3 thousand people.

The Russian Federation has begun to use North Korean troops in attacks on Ukrainian positions in the Kursk region, but a bigger problem is not the North Korean infantry, but the DPRK artillery, the Ukrainian emphasized intelligence.