Russia has been able to carry out larger attacks on Ukrainian cities in recent times thanks to aid from North Korea. According to a United Nations watchdog, North Korea has supplied a lot of ammunition and other weapons to the Russians.
North Korea has sent more than 20,000 containers of ammunition and weapons to Russia, according to the Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team (MSMT). The 20,000 containers contained, among other things, 9 million rounds of ammunition for artillery pieces and rocket launchers.
The group says that these weapons were specifically intended for use in Ukraine. They enabled Russia to attack Ukrainian territory more frequently and on a larger scale. The main targets were cities, roads and other facilities used by civilians.
In exchange for the weapons, Russia has shared technology for guided missiles with North Korea. The group expects that North Korea and Russia “will further expand their military cooperation in the near future”.
The MSMT is a collaboration of eleven UN member states, including the Netherlands. They have been monitoring the implementation of the sanctions imposed on North Korea since last October. In addition to the Netherlands, the United States, the United Kingdom and South Korea are also in the team.
The UN has imposed increasingly severe sanctions on North Korea since 2006. This happened after the country conducted more and more nuclear tests. These sanctions have almost completely isolated the country from the rest of the world. It only (openly) does business with Russia and China. These countries are thus violating the UN sanctions.