Ukraine ‘helpless’ to prevent North Korea arms supply to Russia

Ukraine can do nothing to prevent North Korea supplying Russia with artillery shells and ballistic missiles that are ‘critical’ to the war.

A Ukrainian police officer leads an elderly woman away from the site of a missile attack in Kharkiv on Sunday (Monday AEST). Picture: AFP

Ukraine can do nothing to prevent North Korea from supplying Russia with artillery shells and ballistic missiles that are “critical” to the war and far exceed military aid provided by any other supporter of President Vladimir Putin, its intelligence chief has said.

Major-General Kyrylo Budanov, head of the Ukrainian defence intelligence agency GUR, said that Russian attacks intensified eight to nine days after it received shipments of North Korean arms, which Kyiv could track but not intercept.

“Our biggest problem from all these allies of Russia is from North Korea,” he told a defence conference in Kyiv. “The volume of military products that they supply, they actually affect the intensity of the fighting.”

He told the Yalta European Strategy conference: “They supply huge amounts of artillery ammunition, which is critical for Russia. As the head of intelligence, I can say directly: the fact that they are supplying ballistic missiles there is unpleasant for us, but it is not a significant amount – but with regard to the ammunition, that is critical for us.

“Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do about it for the time being. That is the unfortunate truth.”

During a meeting in Pyongyang in June, after one in Russia a year ago, Putin and Kim Jong-un signed a “comprehensive partnership agreement” committing Russia and North Korea to “mutual assistance in the event of aggression” and also promising co-operation in trade, healthcare, education, science and culture.

It represents a new stage in relations between Moscow and Pyongyang, the closest they have been since the end of the Cold War.

Last week, Sergei Shoigu, Putin’s former defence minister and now head of the Russian Security Council, had talks with Kim in Pyongyang.

In an interview with Times Radio, Sergei Markov, a Russian political scientist and adviser to Putin, confirmed that North Korea was supplying some of the weapons they were using against Ukraine. “It’s a top secret,” he said.

Mr Markov said that he did not know the amount of weapons but added: “What I know for sure is that 90 per cent of the Ukrainian weaponry is Western weaponry. And 90 per cent of the Russian weaponry is Russian weaponry.”

Six months ago Ukrainian intelligence was playing down Kim’s contribution to Russia’s war. In March, General Budanov’s deputy, Major-General Vadym Skibitsky, said that half of the 1.5 million North Korean artillery shells that had been supplied to Russia were duds, made in the 1970s and 80s.

Clearly, contempt has given way to anxiety. General Budanov said that North Korea was now Russia’s biggest arms supplier, surpassing Iran. “North Korea would be first, and then everyone else,” he said.

He also said that Ukrainian attacks deep inside Putin’s territory had had an effect on Russian morale.

“Before that, the entire Russian population lived in the paradigm that, no matter what, we are a very powerful country, we are the strongest in the world,” he said. “With the first explosions, let’s say, in Moscow, on the territory of the Russian Federation, and so on, it was destroyed. It is the main achievement of all those deep strikes.”

THE TIMES