The Russian Armed Forces are estimated to have acquired over 12 million rounds of 152mm artillery shells from North Korea, in keeping with a brand new report from the South Korean Defence Ministry’s Defence Intelligence Company. “If calculated with 152mm single shells, the variety of provided shells is presumed to have reached greater than 12 million,” the company’s report said. The Russian Army was by the tip of 2024 already estimated to have acquired as much as 9 million 122mm and 152mm artillery rounds from its neighbour, in addition to rising numbers of weapons and rounds from a completely new calibre beforehand not fielded by the service, specifically 170mm, which have supplied a for much longer vary. No estimates have been supplied for provides of 122mm and 170mm shells. The Russian Army’s reliance on North Korean provides has continued to develop, with many Russian artillery models having come to rely virtually fully on ammunition provided by North Korea, whereas at the very least six Russian artillery models at the moment supply between 50 and one hundred pc of their munitions from the nation.
The Defence Intelligence Company’s report carefully coincides with the go to of Russian International Minister Sergei Lavrov to Pyongyang, throughout which he praised “the heroic troopers of the the Korean Folks’s Army” of their fighter for “the liberation of Kursk Area with the price of their blood and even their lives,” referring to Pyongyang’s personnel contributions to repelling a Ukrainian assault on the Russian area. It additionally carefully follows a report by the South Korean Nationwide Intelligence Service in June that additional Korean Folks’s Army models are set to be deployed to help the continued Russian conflict effort. This fuelled hypothesis that after the securing of Kursk, North Korean models may start to be dedicated to offensives additional west in areas akin to Donetsk and Sumy.
Russia’s more and more excessive reliance on North Korean help has mirrored the numerous discrepancy between the 2 international locations’ investments of their floor forces because the finish of the Chilly Conflict, with North Korea having sustained funding in key typical belongings akin to armour and artillery, whereas Russia largely uncared for these in an period the place it pursued normalisation of relations with the Western world and integration into Europe. This was lately noticed by main skilled on North Korean safety A. B. Abrams, who famous in his latest guideSurviving the Unipolar Period: North Korea’s 35 12 months Standoff with the USA:
“The place within the last yr of the Chilly Conflict, 1989, the Soviet Army had fielded 1184% as a lot towed artillery as North Korea, 350% as a lot self-propelled artillery and 284% as a lot rocket artillery, against this in 2021 North Korea at a conservative estimate fielded 412% as a lot towed and self-propelled artillery and 625% as a lot rocket artillery because the Russian Army. This mirrored the extent to which Russian forces had contracted, and that to which the KPA [Korean People’s Army] had sustained huge typical floor capabilities previous the Chilly Conflict period. The intense contraction of Russia’s frontline forces and stockpiles, its defence sector and its basic navy readiness resulted in a really totally different stability of energy between the 2 states, which yielded dividends for Pyongyang as its neighbour got here to rely upon it closely.”
Russian defence procurements from North Korea have turn into more and more numerous, together with anti-tank guided missiles with hearth and neglect capabilities not seen on their Russian counterparts, and tactical ballistic missiles with ranges and payloads exceeding these produced in Russia. A lot stays unsure concerning the way forward for these procurements, with hypothesis having grown {that a} wider vary of armaments varieties, together with primary battle tanks, will likely be acquired.
