North Korea could send up to 5 million artillery shells to Russia – South Korea

Shin Won-sik, Minister of Defence of the Republic of Korea, has stated that North Korea sent the containers, which can fit almost 5 million artillery shells, to Russia.

Seoul has detected at least 10,000 shipping containers being sent from North Korea to Russia, which could hold as many as 4.8 million artillery shells.

"Putin is expected to seek closer security cooperation with North Korea, especially military supplies such as artillery shells that are necessary to seize a chance to win," Shin Won-sik said in an interview for Bloomberg News.

Shin Won-sik also reported that North Korea had sent tens of ballistic missiles in order to help Putin in the war against Ukraine.

In exchange for ammunition Russia sent to North Korea technologies which would help it deploy an array of spy satellites as well as conventional arms such as tanks and aircraft.

The South Korean DongA Ilbo newspaper reported that Putin would visit North Korea next week. This trip will become his first visit since 2000 and will cause concern from the side of the US and their partners regarding weapons supplies which helped the Kremlin in its war against Ukraine.

The amount of munitions sent by North Korea following the meeting between Putin and Kim in Russia in September has likely significantly surpassed that sent by the US and the EU to Ukraine. The EU promised to supply Ukraine with a million artillery shells by the end of the year.

In February Seoul stated that Russia could receive up to three million artillery shells from North Korea.