According to recently declassified intelligence assessments from the United States, Russia is purchasing millions of artillery shells and rockets from North Korea.
The New York Times broke the news by stating that the US intelligence did not reveal specific information about the precise weapons being purchased or the timing or magnitude of the shipments. Beyond short-range rockets and artillery shells, a U.S. official predicted that Russia will try to buy more North Korean weapons in the future.
Mason Clark, who is in charge of the Russia team at the Institute for the Study of War, said that the Kremlin “should be disturbed that it has to buy anything at all from North Korea.”
Following the United Nations resolution, which demanded the member states should expel all the north Korean workers from their countries by 2019. North Korea has offered to send construction works to reconstruct Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine.
To demonstrate its support for Russia in the ongoing Ukraine war, North Korea became the only state aside from Russia and Syria to recognize the self-proclaimed republics in Donetsk and Luhansk.
