Russia is estimated to have supplied North Korea with more than one million barrels of oil since March this year, according to an analysis of satellite imagery by the Open Source Centre, a UK-based non-profit research group.
The oil is payment for the weapons and troops Pyongyang has sent to Moscow to bolster its war in Ukraine, leading experts and UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy have told the BBC.
The transfers violate UN sanctions, which ban countries from selling oil to North Korea, except in small quantities, in an effort to pressure its economy to prevent it from developing further nuclear weapons.
Satellite images show more than a dozen different North Korean tankers arriving at an oil terminal in the Russian Far East a total of 43 times over the past eight months.
Further images appear to show tankers arriving empty and leaving nearly full.
North Korea is the only country in the world that is not allowed to buy oil on the open market. The number of barrels of oil it can receive is limited by the United Nations to 500.000 per year, far less than it needs.
"While Kim Jong Un provides Vladimir Putin with a lifeline to continue his war, Russia is quietly providing North Korea with a lifeline of its own," says Joe Byrne of the Open Source Centre. "This steady flow of oil gives North Korea a level of stability that it hasn't had since these sanctions were put in place."
Four former members of a UN committee responsible for monitoring sanctions against North Korea told the BBC that the transfers were a consequence of growing ties between Moscow and Pyongyang.
UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy told the BBC: "To continue fighting in Ukraine, Russia is increasingly dependent on North Korea for troops and weapons in exchange for oil." He added that this "has a direct impact on the security of the Korean Peninsula, Europe and the Indo-Pacific."
Cheap oil
While most people in North Korea rely on coal for their daily lives, oil is essential to the operation of the country's military. Diesel and gasoline are used to transport missile launchers and troops around the country, run munitions factories and power the cars of Pyongyang's elite.
The 500.000 barrels North Korea is allowed to receive falls far short of the nine million it consumes – meaning that since the cap was introduced in 2017, the country has been forced to buy oil from illegal networks to make up the difference.
This involves moving the oil between ships at sea – a dangerous, expensive and time-consuming business, according to Dr Go Myong-hyun, a senior researcher at South Korea's Strategic National Security Institute, which has contacts with the country's spy agency.
“Now Kim Jong Un is getting oil directly, it's probably of a better quality, and chances are he's getting it for free, in exchange for the munitions supply. What could be better than that?' "One million barrels is nothing for a major oil producer like Russia, but it's a significant amount for North Korea to take," he adds.
Transport monitoring
In all 43 of the transfers tracked by the Open Source Center using satellite imagery, the North Korean-flagged tankers arrived at the Russian port of Vostochny with their transmitters turned off, obscuring their movements.
The images show that they then returned to one of four ports on North Korea's east and west coasts.
"Ships appear quietly, almost every week," said Joe Byrne, a researcher at the Open Source Centre. "Since March there has been a fairly steady flow."
The team, which has been tracking these tankers since the oil sanctions were first introduced, used knowledge of each ship's capacity to calculate how many barrels of oil they could carry.
They then studied images of the ships coming in and out of Vostochny and, in most cases, could see how low they were in the water and therefore how full they were.
The tankers, it is estimated, were loaded to 90% of their capacity.
"We can see from some of the images that if the ships were fuller they would sink," Byrne noted.
Based on this, they estimate that, since March, Russia has supplied North Korea with more than one million barrels of oil – more than double the annual cap and about ten times the amount Moscow officially provided to Pyongyang in 2023.
This follows the US government's estimate in May that Moscow had already supplied more than 500.000 barrels worth of oil.
A 'new level of contempt' for sanctions
Not only do these oil deliveries violate UN sanctions against North Korea, which Russia, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, is a signatory to – but also, more than half of the trips tracked by the Open Source Center were made by ships that have been individually sanctioned by the UN.
This means they should have been confiscated upon entering Russian waters.
But in March 2024, three weeks after the first oil shipment was recorded, Russia "dissolved" the UN committee responsible for monitoring sanctions violations, using its veto in the UN Security Council.
Ashley Hess, who worked for the commission until its collapse, says they saw evidence that the transfers had begun. "We were monitoring some of the vessels and companies involved, but our work was stopped, probably after they had already breached the 500.000 barrel cap."
Eric Penton-Voak, who led the group from 2021-2023, reported that Russian members of the group tried to censor its work.
Other exchanges
As Kim Jong Un ramps up his support for Vladimir Putin's war, concern is growing about what else he will get in return.
The US and South Korea estimate that Pyongyang has now sent 16.000 shipping containers filled with artillery shells and rockets to Moscow, while debris from North Korean ballistic missiles has been recovered from the battlefield in Ukraine.
Recently, Putin and Kim signed a defense pact, which saw thousands of North Korean troops sent to Russia's Kursk region, where they are reportedly now engaged in combat.
South Korea's government told the BBC it would "sternly respond to Russia and North Korea's violation of UN Security Council resolutions."
Its biggest concern is that Moscow will provide Pyongyang with technology to improve its spy satellites and ballistic missiles.
Last month, Seoul's Defense Minister Kim Jong-hyun said there was a "high possibility" North Korea would ask for such help.
"If you send your people to die in a foreign war, a million barrels of oil is not a sufficient reward," noted Dr. Go.
Andrei Lankov, an expert on North Korea-Russia relations at Kookmin University in Seoul, agrees. “I used to think it wasn't in Russia's interest to share military technology, but maybe its calculus has changed. The Russians need these troops and that gives the North Koreans more leverage."
South Korea finds Russia supplied anti-aircraft missiles to North Korea in exchange for its troops
Russia has supplied anti-aircraft missiles to North Korea in exchange for sending troops, a top South Korean official said Friday, according to apnews.com.
National Security Director Shin Wonsik said on SBS television on Friday that South Korea has found that Russia has provided anti-aircraft missiles and other equipment to bolster the air defense network of Pyongyang, the North Korean capital.
Shin mentioned that Russia has also given financial aid to North Korea.
Seoul and Washington have expressed concerns about possible Russian transfers of sensitive nuclear and missile technology to North Korea.
South Korea's spy agency said on Wednesday that North Korea recently sent additional artillery systems to Russia. Last month, the National Intelligence Service reported that North Korea had sent more than 13.000 containers of guns, missiles and other conventional weapons to Russia since August 2023 to replenish its weapons stockpile.
Earlier this week, North Korea and Russia reached a new agreement to expand economic cooperation following high-level talks in Pyongyang this week, according to the countries' state media.
Source: skai.gr
