As of: February 29, 2024, 6:26 a.m
By: Michael Kister
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North Korea is said to have delivered around 6,700 containers to Russia since September.
In particular, it could have contained ammunition for the Ukraine war.
Moscow/Pyongyang - While a team from the Foreign Office visited North Korea for the first time since the outbreak of the corona pandemic, the Defense Minister of South Korea, Shin Won-sik, took stock of the previous arms exports to Russia from the neighboring state ruled by dictator Kim Jong-un.
He said at a media briefing reported by South Korea's
Yonhap
news agency that North Korea had sent about 6,700 containers of goods to Russia since September 2023.
The containers would have enough space for either about 3 million 152-millimeter caliber artillery shells or 500,000 122-millimeter caliber projectiles, he continued.
Shin did not mention the ballistic missiles, which have also been making their way from North Korea to Russia since November at the latest and, for example, fell on Kharkiv on February 7, 2024.
In return, North Korea will primarily receive food, but also raw materials and parts that the heavily sanctioned country needs for weapons production, said the South Korean Foreign Minister.
He added that the volume of these goods shipped from Russia exceeds that of North Korean shipments in the other direction by about 30 percent.
So far, North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un (l) is said to have delivered up to 3 million artillery shells to Russia.
© Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP/dpa
Ukraine War: Up to 3 million artillery shells from North Korea for Russia
Since Kim Jong-un met Vladimir Putin at Russia's Vostochny Cosmodrome in mid-September 2023, there have been reports of an arms deal between the two.
Kim made no secret of his support for the Russian war in Ukraine: their countries stood together in the fight against imperialism, he assured the Kremlin ruler.
It seems that Kim is even increasing the production of ammunition for his partner.
Normally, according to South Korean Defense Minister Shin, North Korean weapons factories only utilize around 30 percent of their production capacity because they lack the necessary raw materials and energy.
The factories, which mainly produce weapons and bullets for Russia, are currently pushing this rate towards 100 percent, Shin
Yonhap
said on Monday.
Russia fires ten times as many shells as Ukraine
The North Korean products make up part of the estimated 10,000 grenades that Russia currently fires in Ukraine every day.
According to Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umjerov, this is up to ten times as much as his country can raise.
Ukraine is therefore also pushing for more ammunition deliveries from the West, which – via detours – have previously also come from South Korea.
The country sent artillery ammunition to the USA and Poland, which gave them the freedom to hand over their own stocks to Ukraine.
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Kim is likely to see Russia's demand as an opportunity to boost his country's limping economy: His country has endured three consecutive years of recession triggered by the coronavirus pandemic.
The usually reliable estimate from the South Korean Bank of Korea put North Korea's gross domestic product (GDP) for 2022 at just under $28 billion.
This equates to a decline of 0.2 percent compared to the previous year and adds up to less than 2 percent of South Korea's GDP in the same period.
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At the same time, and probably because Kim is investing so much money in armaments, the people of North Korea have been suffering from chronic food shortages for years.
It remains to be seen whether Russian deliveries can solve this problem.
It may initially have been more important to Kim to achieve a prestige coup with technological support from the Russians: After Putin promised him in Vostochny to help him build satellites, the North Korean ruler sent his first spy satellite into space last November.
With this, Kim promptly claims to have scouted out the White House and American military bases.
South Korean Defense Minister Shin remained skeptical about this at Monday's media briefing, saying of the satellite: "It shows no signs of functioning and is simply orbiting the Earth with no activity."
(Michael Kister)