Russia has reportedly been forced to buy arms from fellow pariah state North Korea as Western sanctions squeeze its ability to supply its invasion force in Ukraine, the BBC reports.
Also, according to US media, Russia has bought millions of artillery shells and rockets from Pyongyang, and last week received a first order of new Iranian drones.
New Russian missile strikes have been reported across Ukraine, with a fuel depot set on fire in the Kryvyi Rih area and deadly attacks on Kharkiv, where a woman’s body was found after a strike destroyed the upper part of a block of flats, as local authorities reported.
Kim Jong-un’s government has blamed the US for the conflict and accused the West of pursuing a “hegemonic policy” that justified Russia’s use of force.
Last month, North Korea recognised the independence of two Russian-backed breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine – the Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics – and vowed to deepen its “comradely friendship” with Moscow. Mr Putin said the two countries would expand their “comprehensive and constructive bilateral relations”, according to North Korean state media.
The exact size and scale of the new weapons deliveries reported by the New York Times and Associated Press news agency remain unclear.
But a US official said turning to North Korea for support demonstrated that “the Russian military continues to suffer from severe supply shortages in Ukraine, due in part to export controls and sanctions”.
Image: Par Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/…
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