Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: How deadly and expensive Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has become was proved with reports suggesting that Moscow, once a major arms exporter, is trying to buy weapons even from North Korea to keep its fratricidal conflict going in the neighboring country.
With no end visible to the ongoing 18-month-old “special military operation” in Ukraine—which Russia originally believed would wind up in ’48 to 72 hours’—President Vladimir Putin is trying to save his face. Russia’s economy, despite its booming crude trade—has faced downslides because of Western sanctions and curtailed imports. He also faced a brief mutiny recently by his friend-turned-foe Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner militia of criminals-turned-soldiers.
Even Beijing, with which Moscow had signed a “limitless friendship” some 20 days before invading Ukraine on February 24, 2022, cannot directly export weapons to Russia as the West has warned it of severe repercussions. But China can, of course, route these weapons to Russia via North Korea.
The White House on Wednesday said it has new intelligence that shows President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un have swapped letters as Russia looks to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) for munitions for the war in Ukraine.
US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby detailed the latest finding just weeks after the White House said that it had determined that Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, during a recent visit to Pyongyang, called on North Korean officials to increase the sale of munitions to Moscow for its Ukraine war, the media reported.
Kirby said that Russia is looking for additional artillery shells and other basic materials to shore up its defense industrial base.
The letters were “more at the surface level” but Russian and North Korean talks on a weapons sale were advancing. The leaders exchanged letters following Shoigu’s visit, he said.
“Following Shoigu’s visit another group of Russian officials traveled to Pyongyang for follow-on discussions about potential arms deals between the DPRK and Russia,” Kirby said.
The Biden administration has time and again highlighted the Kremlin’s reliance on North Korea, as well as Iran, for the arms it needs to continue its war against Ukraine. International pariahs, North Korea and Iran are largely isolated on the global stage for their nuclear programs and human rights records.
In March, the White House said it had intelligence showing Russia looking to broker a food-for-arms deal with North Korea, in which Moscow would provide the North with needed food and other commodities in return for munitions from Pyongyang.
Late in 2022, the White House said it had determined that the Wagner Group, a private Russian military company, had taken delivery of an arms shipment from North Korea to help bolster its forces fighting in Ukraine on behalf of Russia.
Both North Korea and Russia previously denied the US allegations about weapons. North Korea, however, sided with Russia over the war in Ukraine, insisting that the “hegemonic policy” of the US-led West forced Moscow to take military action to protect its security interests.
At the United Nations on Wednesday, the United States, the United Kingdom, South Korea, and Japan urged North Korea to halt arms negotiations with Russia.
Any Russian-North Korean arms deals would violate the UN Security Council resolutions, backed by Russia, that prohibit all countries from buying or obtaining any arms from the North, the four countries said in a joint statement.
“This sends the wrong message to aspiring proliferators that if you sell Russia arms, Russia will even enable your pursuit of nuclear weapons,” US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who was flanked by diplomats from the three other countries, said.