Mick Hartley

Helping Russia, North Korean-style:

Kim Jong-un has given 1.5 million artillery shells to Vladimir Putin after their meeting last year, but half of them are duds, a Ukrainian intelligence chief has said.

According to Major-General Vadym Skibitsky, deputy chief of Kyiv’s intelligence directorate, North Korea is also supplying 500kg ballistic missiles that are being used in Ukraine, but the artillery shells that it has sent are more than half a century old.

“As of today, taking into account the available statistics, Russia has already imported 1.5 million rounds of ammunition from the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea],” he told the Interfax-Ukraine news agency. “However, these shells were made in the 70s and 80s. Half of them do not work and the rest need to be either repaired or checked before being used.”