Russia sends oil to North Korea despite sanctions
Russia has supplied oil directly to North Korea this year, as both regimes openly defy U.N. sanctions over oil sales to Pyongyang in response to its nuclear weapons tests, satellite images shared exclusively with the F inancial Times.
North Korea has been under United Nations Security Council sanctions since 2017, but Russia is said to have supplied and smuggled oil to the country since then.
In August 2018, the Asian Institute for Policy Studies said that while the majority of oil trade with North Korea that circumvents sanctions is believed to come from China, oil sales from Russia to Kim's regime Jong-Un may be much larger than official figures suggest, as shell companies have been created for illicit oil flows to Pyongyang.
In a suspected oil-for-arms deal with North Korea, Russia appears to have increased its supplies of oil to Kim Jong-Un in exchange for ammunition and other military equipment from North Korea to use in its war in Ukraine.
Now satellite images, which the British think tank Royal United Services Institute shared with the FT, have shown that in March alone, at least five North Korean oil tankers traveled to load petroleum products from the port of Vostochny, the largest port in the Russian Far East.
These deliveries are the first documented direct shipments of oil by sea from Russia to North Korea since UN sanctions were imposed in 2017, the FT notes.
“These oil deliveries constitute a frontal attack on the sanctions regime, which is now on the verge of collapse,” Hugh Griffiths, former coordinator of the United Nations panel monitoring sanctions on North Korea, told the British newspaper.
The Russian and North Korean regimes have grown closer in recent years and have exchanged supplies to help each other.
Last month, South Korea's Defense Minister Shin Won-sik said some factories in North Korea were working full time to produce weapons for Russia in exchange for food and other supplies.
“While North Korea's weapons factories are operating at 30 percent capacity due to shortages of raw materials and energy, some factories are operating at full capacity and mainly producing weapons and projectiles for Russia,” Shin said at the end in February, as reported by South Korean news agency Yonhap.
This move was actually obvious: the two countries are heavily sanctioned, but have somewhat complementary resources. Collaboration to overcome difficulties is an almost obvious move. The trade comes to benefit both parties.
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The article Russia sends oil to North Korea, despite sanctions comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/la-russia-invia-petrolio-alla-corea-del-nord-nonostante-le-sanzioni/ on Tue, 26 Mar 2024 13:28:59 +0000.