North Korea has not only not cut back but may even have increased its supply of munitions after U.S. and South Korean intelligence agencies said in the fall that it had begun supplying the terrorist state of russia with weapons for use in its war against Ukraine.
This is evidenced by satellite images recording the movement of containers between the Korean port of Rajin and the village of Dunay in the Primorsky Krai of the russian federation, Bloomberg reports.
The White House initially released the August-October images; according to the data, then the DPRK sent about 1 million shells to russia by ship. In addition, on November 1, South Korea's National Intelligence Service informed parliamentarians that more than 1 million shells were delivered to russia on ten flights.
"After about a month and a half, I don't see the supply rate slowing down at all, so based on what we know, that's another half a million rounds," military expert Joost Oliemans, co-author of the book North Korea's Armed Forces, told Bloomberg and the Oryx site, which documents, in particular, the loss of equipment during the russian-Ukrainian war.
North Korea has one of the largest stockpiles of ammunition in the world; they are intended for Soviet-style weapons that are actively used by the russian armed forces, primarily 152-mm shells.
"Trade" between Rajin and the Dunay appears to have even picked up since October, according to an analysis of satellite images by the Vienna-based Open Nuclear Network. According to its analyst Jaewoo Shin, "flights in both directions continue with no less intensity, despite additional U.S. sanctions and active coverage of this topic in the last few months."
"Although it is impossible to say exactly what kind of cargo is being transported, the number of round-trip flights and the hundreds of containers being delivered suggest that the supply of ammunition and other types of weapons is carried out in large volumes," he says.
One of the ships that regularly deliver goods from russia to the DPRK and load containers in Rajin, where they are delivered from North Korean regions by rail, is the Angara container ship. In particular, it was in a Korean port on December 9, satellite images show. From there to the Danube (where there is a ship repair plant, and in Soviet times there was a submarine base) - only 180 km.
Angara belongs to the Moscow company called M-leasing, against which the United States, Great Britain, and Ukraine imposed sanctions for the "transportation of weapons and military equipment for the benefit of the russian government." The ship is operated by Astrakhan Marin Trans Shipping, which has also been sanctioned for transporting weapons.
From Dunay, the containers are delivered by rail to Tikhoretsk Krasnodar Krai, experts of the Royal United Defense Research Institute (RUSI) found out earlier. This was confirmed by American government officials. Tikhoretsk is located approximately 200 km from the eastern shore of the Sea of Azov. Cargo from it can be delivered both through Rostov-on-Don to the Donetsk Region and through Krasnodar and the Kerch Strait - to the Crimea and further - to the occupied southern regions of Ukraine.
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