Mick Hartley

A BBC report:

Russia is estimated to have supplied North Korea with more than a million barrels of oil since March this year, according to satellite imagery analysis from the Open Source Centre, a non-profit research group based in the UK.

The oil is payment for the weapons and troops Pyongyang has sent Moscow to fuel its war in Ukraine, leading experts and UK Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, have told the BBC.

These transfers violate UN sanctions, which ban countries from selling oil to North Korea, except in small quantities, in an attempt to stifle its economy to prevent it from further developing nuclear weapons.

The satellite images, shared exclusively with the BBC, show more than a dozen different North Korean oil tankers arriving at an oil terminal in Russia’s Far East a total of 43 times over the past eight months.

Further pictures, taken of the ships at sea, appear to show the tankers arriving empty, and leaving almost full.

This is not a huge surprise. The question is: what else apart from the oil? 10,000 troops sent to Ukraine is no small matter.

The South Korean government has told the BBC it would “sternly respond to the violation of the UN Security Council resolutions by Russia and North Korea”.

Its biggest worry is that Moscow will provide Pyongyang with technology to improve its spy satellites and ballistic missiles.

Last month, Seoul’s defence minister, Kim Yong-hyun, stated there was a “high chance” North Korea was asking for such help, external.

“If you’re sending your people to die in a foreign war, a million barrels of oil is just not sufficient reward,” Dr Go says.

Andrei Lankov, an expert in North Korea-Russia relations at Seoul’s Kookmin University, agrees.

“I used to think it was not in Russia’s interest to share military technology, but perhaps its calculus has changed. The Russians need these troops, and this gives the North Koreans more leverage.”