North Korean weapons are killing Ukrainians. The implications are far bigger

Ms. Kimachuk is a researcher at Conflict Armament Research ( CAR ), which determines the manufacturing process for weapons used in combat. The most jaw-dropping discovery, however, was only made after she finished photographing the missile’s aircraft and her team completed an analysis of its hundreds of components.

It was bursting with the latest international systems. Over the past few years, the majority of digital components had been produced in the US and Europe. Yet a US computer chip was created just as late as March 2023. In order to avoid having to import crucial weapons components, North Korea had illegally obtained them, imported them into the country, assembled the weapon, and secretly delivered it to Russia, where it had then been taken to the front and fired, all of which took several months.

” This was the biggest wonder, that despite being under intense sanctions for about two years, North Korea is also managing to get its hands on all it needs to make its arms, and with extraordinary rate”, said Damien Spleeters, the deputy director at CAR.

Over in London, Joseph Byrne, a North Korea expert at the defence think tank the Royal United Services Institute ( RUSI), was equally stunned.

He claimed,” I never imagined that North Korean nuclear missiles would be used to kill people on German soil.” Since Mr. Kim met his Soviet equivalent Vladimir Putin in Russia in September of last year, he and his RUSI staff have been monitoring the sale of North Korean munitions to Russia.

Four Russian cargo ships are spotted moving between North Korea and a Russian military interface, loaded with plenty of vessels at once, using satellite imagery.

RUSI estimates that 7, 000 pots, each containing more than a million weapons shells and graduate rockets, have been delivered in full. Despite the fact that Russia and North Korea have denied the business, their assessments have been supported by knowledge from the US, UK, and South Korea.

At a time when the US and Europe have been weighing up what arms to contribute, Mr. Byrne said,” These shells and rockets are some of the most sought-after things in the world now.”

However, Mr. Byrne and his associates are most concerned about the appearance of nuclear weapons on the field because of what they reveal about North Korea’s arms program.

Since the 1980s North Korea has sold its arms worldwide, largely to places in the North Africa and the Middle East, including Libya, Syria and Iran. They have tended to be older, Russian- type weapons with a bad reputation. In their assault on October 7th, Hamas soldiers allegedly used some of Pyongyang’s older rocket-propelled bombs.

But the missile fired on 2 January, that Ms Kimachuk took off, was evidently Pyongyang’s most powerful short- range missile- the Hwasong 11- ready of travelling up to 700km ( 435 miles ).

Although the Ukrainians have downplayed their precision, Middlebury Institute of International Studies ‘ Dr. Jeffrey Lewis, a specialist in Northern Korean munitions and non-proliferation, claims that their precision is comparable to that of the Russian missiles.

According to Dr. Lewis, the benefit of these weapons is that they are really affordable. In order to overwhelm air defenses, the Russians appear to be doing exactly what they are supposed to do: get more and fireplace more.

The North Koreans ‘ ability to produce a large number of these weapons is finally questioned. According to the South Korean government, North Korea’s arms businesses are operating at full tilt, and Dr. Lewis, who has been tracking these companies using satellites, estimates they can produce a few hundred a year. The report claims that North Korea sent 6, 700 pots of munitions to Russia.

Given that businesses are prohibited from selling components to North Korea, Mr. Spleeters and his team are now trying to figure out how this can be done.

According to Mr. Spleeters, many of the computer bits that make up modern weapons and guide them through the air to their intended goals are the same ones that power our telephones, washing machines, and vehicles.

Worldwide, these are being sold in astronomical quantities. Producing companies sell to billionaire producers, who then sell their goods in the millions, leaving them frequently without knowledge of where their goods go.

Even so, Mr. Byrne was alarmed to know that so many of the missile’s parts had been imported from the West. It proved that North Korea’s sourcing systems were more robust and effective than actually he, who investigates these systems, had realised.

According to his knowledge, North Koreans operating out of North Korea set up phony businesses in Hong Kong or another central Asian nations to purchase the goods with largely stolen funds. The goods are then delivered to North Korea, typically along China’s borders, via a frontier crossing. If a false organization is discovered and sanctioned, another will immediately pop up in its place.

Sanctions must be constantly updated and enforced in order for them to function, despite long being viewed as an imperfect device for battling these networks. Since 2017, both China and Russia have resisted imposing fresh sanctions on North Korea.

By buying Pyongyang’s arms, Moscow is then violating the very restrictions it again voted for as a member of the UN Security Council. The UN panel that monitored sanctions violations was essentially disbanded earlier this year, which was likely to be spared investigation.

” Pyongyang is gaining a lot of breathing room because of the real-time crumbling of UN sanctions against North Korea,” Mr. Byrne observed.

All of this has repercussions that extend beyond the Ukraine war.

” The true winners here are the North Koreans”, said Mr Byrne. They have gained a lot of liquidity from their assistance, according to the statement.

RUSI found large volumes of oil being transported from Russia to North Korea in March, and railcars seen passing the nation’s land borders laden with what is thought to be rice and wheat. This offer, thought to be worth hundreds of millions of pounds, may boost not just Pyongyang’s market, but its defense.

Russia could provide the North with the raw materials necessary to keep producing its rockets, or even defense equipment like fighter jets, and, at its worst, Russia may offer technical assistance in order to keep developing its nuclear weapons.

Moreover, for the first time, the North will have the opportunity to test its most recent missiles in a real-world war scenario. With this important files, it will be able to make them better.

The fact that the conflict gives North Korea a window into the rest of the world is even more disturbing.

According to Dr. Lewis, Pyongyang will now want to buy these weapons to more nations, and if the missiles are good sufficiently for Russia, they will be good enough for some, especially since the Russians are setting the example of how it is acceptable to offend restrictions.

He anticipates that North Korea will be a major supplier of missiles to nations in the China, Russia, and Iran bloc in the future. The US expressed “extremely concerned” that North Korea might collaborate with Iran on its nuclear and ballistic weapons programs following Iran’s attack on Israel this month.

” I see a lot of gloomy faces when we talk about this problem”, said Mr Spleeters. The good news is that we can do something about it now that we know how dependent they are on foreign technology.

Mr. Spleeters believes that North Korea’s supply chains can be severnded by working with manufacturers. Before completing a significant sale, his team has already succeeded in identifying and shutting down an illegal network.

But Dr Lewis is not exactly convinced.

” We can make it harder, more inconvenient, maybe raise the cost, but none of this is going to prevent North Korea from making these weapons”, he said, adding that the West had ultimately failed in its attempt to contain the rogue state.

According to Dr. Lewis, the country’s missiles are now a source of prestige and political power as well as enormous amounts of money. So why would Kim Jong Un ever abandon them now?