UK sends images to UN that may prove North Korea's arms sales to Russia
The UK has provided a UN panel of experts with satellite images that may prove that North Korea has supplied Russia with weapons in order to initiate an official investigation into the matter.
According The Guardian, citing a UK Defence Intelligence report, the report contains images showing three Russian ships – the Maia, Angara and Maria – loading containers at the reopened North Korean port of Najin before transporting them to Russian ports in the Far East.
The images were taken between September and December. Although UK intelligence officials indicated that they could not identify what was in the containers, the report emerged after the US announced that Russia had used ballistic missiles from North Korea in Ukraine.
The UN diplomat said this report and other evidence should trigger a full investigation into Russia's and North Korea's violations of international sanctions.
The report, along with other evidence from the United States and other countries, was provided to the UN panel of experts.
All the Russian ships mentioned in the report were made subject to US government sanctions in 2022.
Two of the three ships were also identified in a recent report by the Royal United Services Institute, a think tank, which found an increase in shipments from North Korea to Russia, revealing "that Russia has likely begun shipping North Korean munitions at scale".
NK News, an independent news site focusing on North Korea, identified the third vessel as "part of a group of commercial vessels that have completed multiple deliveries of military equipment and munitions provided by the DPRK to Russia".
Russia stepped up cooperation with North Korea after the former's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Pyongyang is known to have handed over artillery shells and ballistic missiles to Moscow, which have already been used to strike Ukrainian cities.
The United States has indicated that the nature of the security threat posed by North Korea could change "drastically" in the next decade as a result of its cooperation with Russia.