Secret deals with Russia help Kim Jong Un fill depleted coffers, fund nuclear program

North Korea’s Kim Jong Un has discovered new ways to replenish his depleted coffers, allowing him to disregard financial incentives intended to persuade the country to return to the negotiating table and continue with the development of his nuclear program. With assistance from the Soviet Union, his grandfather, state founder Kim Il Sung, assumed power. Now, as North Korea gets ready to commemorate the armistice that ended the Korean War on 27 July, 1953, it must once more give credit to Russia. The United Nations said last month that Russia has started supplying oil to North Korea again for the first time since 2020. That comes after grain supplies were resumed earlier. Although it is impossible to predict what is moving in the opposite direction, the US government and unaffiliated analysts agree on one key point: North Korea’s massive stockpiles of weapons, according to a Bloomberg report. These measures alone won’t be enough to revive a broken and isolated economy. However, aid from Russia is ensuring the economy remains stable enough to run, along with the restoration of economic relations with China and other money streams like cybercrime, allowing Kim to continue defying the international community, added the report. “North Korea always manages to find a way to survive,” Bloomberg quoted Rachel Minyoung Lee, a regional issues manager at the Vienna-based Open Nuclear Network who worked as an analyst for the CIA’s Open Source Enterprise for almost two decades, as saying. “There is no indication that it would return to nuclear talks anytime soon,” added Lee. Russia and China are showing their support for Kim by sending high-profile delegations to North Korea to mark the anniversary — the first such visits by foreign envoys since the Covid-19 pandemic. The Russian group headed by Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu arrived Tuesday night and received a welcome from top cadres. “The Russian delegation was ushered in with an official welcoming ceremony at the Sunan international airport (Pyongyang),” reported TASS News Agency. “The Russian defence minister was welcomed by North Korean Defence Minister Kang Sun-nam,” it added. Pyongyang rejects accusations of supplying arms to Russia According to the Bloomberg report, Pyongyang, which has been banned from arms sales for about 15 years, rejects accusations it is supplying Russia. Yet the White House in December said it had evidence North Korea completed an initial arms shipment to the Wagner Group for use in Ukraine that included infantry rockets and missiles. One item that North Korea has and Russia likely wants is 152 mm artillery shells. These are interoperable with the Soviet-era weaponry that’s been pushed back into service in Ukraine. The Kremlin’s war machine has been burning through thousands daily, according to the report citing Jamestown Foundation research group, and has been scrambling for supplies as the conflict continues. North Korea possesses untold stores of munitions that could run into millions of rounds for an arsenal that has for decades held Seoul under the threat of devastation. North Korea would likely jump at the chance to offload some of its stockpile at a hefty price, the report quoted weapons expert Joost Oliemans, who co-authored the book The Armed Forces of North Korea, as saying. Exactly how much they’d get would be down to their ability to negotiate. For example, if North Korea sold shells at $1,000 each, selling 250,000 would be equal to about 1% of its GDP, according to Bloomberg News calculations. That’s a conservative estimate because high demand has driven up prices, with the 155 mm shells used by NATO forces priced at about $3,000 each. Trade picks up Given that both North Korea and Russia are subject to UN sanctions, both seek to conceal exactly how much trade is going on. But there are numerous signs that activity is picking up. In late 2022, the two countries restored a rail link that had been suspended for nearly three years, according to satellite images including those from November that show a train crossing from Russia into North Korea and stopping at a freight handling station. Kang Mi-jin, a North Korean defector who now runs a company in South Korea that watches the economy of her former home, told Bloomberg that her contacts report that Russian sugar has made its way into markets in recent months. It’s been warily received since it’s coarser and a darker color than what North Koreans are used to, Kang said. There are also indications of increased activity with China after the two countries reopened their main rail link last year that had been closed since Covid. Traffic between the Chinese border city of Dandong and North Korea’s nearby city of Sinuiju can be watched on the streets in China. With inputs from agencies