Bloomberg: Russia resumed oil supplies to North Korea in exchange for North Korean weapons

For the first time since 2020, Russia has resumed oil supplies to North Korea, which is under sanctions. The USA claims that the deepening of cooperation between the countries involves the supply of weapons from Pyongyang for Russiaʼs war in Ukraine.

Bloomberg writes about it.

Oil supplies from Russia were stopped in October 2020. Russia resumed sending oil to North Korea in December 2022, according to a UN sanctions committee report released last week. This continued in 2023. During this time, Russia sent approximately 67 000 barrels of oil to North Korea.

Satellite images from 38 North showed that late last year, Russia and North Korea may have resumed trade via a single railway. This network was shut down in February 2020 when Kim Jong Un closed the borders due to COVID-19.

"We are concerned that North Korea plans to supply more military equipment to Russia," the US State Department official told Reuters.

According to North Korean media, this week Kim Jong Un offered Putin the support of the Russian people and said he was ready to "strive for closer strategic cooperation between the DPRK and Russia, holding hands firmly with the Russian president."

• On September 5, 2022, The New York Times, citing declassified the US intelligence, reported that Russia is buying artillery shells and short-range missiles from North Korea. Later, the White House also informed that it had information about Russiaʼs plans to purchase millions of ammunition for artillery and short-range missiles from North Korea.
• At the beginning of November 2022, the USA officially accused the DPRK of secretly supplying Russia with artillery shells. Later, the satellite recorded a train on the route to the Russian Federation, which had not functioned for several years.
• At the end of December 2022, the Reuters agency wrote that the Russian PMC "Wagner" received a shipment of weapons from North Korea.
• On March 30, the US Treasury Departmentʼs Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed sanctions against Slovakian citizen Ashot Mkrtychev, who facilitated shipments from North Korea to Russia.
• Pyongyang rejects accusations of arms sales to Russia and calls them "baseless rumours".