Russia gave North Korea oil and anti-aircraft missiles in return for military support in Ukraine, according to a South Korean official, and satellite imagery analysis.
North Korea has dispatched 10,000 troops to Russia, with most of them deployed in the western Kursk Oblast and taking part in combat, a Pentagon spokesperson said during a press briefing on Nov. 12.
South Korea's national security advisor Shin Won-sik on Nov. 22 said Moscow had provided Pyongyang with economic and military technology in exchange for the troops.
"It is understood that North Korea has been provided with related equipment and anti-aircraft missiles to strengthen Pyongyang's weak air defense system," Shin said in an interview with South Korea’s SBS News.
Elsewhere, the BBC on Nov. 22 reported that Russia is estimated to have supplied North Korea with more than a million barrels of oil since March this year.
The claim was based on an analysis of satellite imagery by the Open Source Centre, a non-profit research group based in the U.K.
U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy told the BBC that the oil is payment for weapons and troops sent to Moscow to fuel the war in Ukraine.
North Korean leader Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a strategic partnership agreement in June. Under the treaty, the two countries pledge to help each other if either is attacked.
North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui visited Moscow and met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Nov. 4.
"Our country will stand firmly by our Russian comrades until the day of victory," Choe said, calling Moscow's offensive against Ukraine a "sacred struggle."
Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine's former commander-in-chief and current ambassador to the U.K., claimed that the direct involvement of Russia's allies such as North Korea in the war against Ukraine was evidence of a global conflict.
The Kyiv IndependentAlisa Yurchenko