The oil deliveries in question violate UN sanctions, which prohibit the sale of large quantities of oil to North Korea.
Russia has supplied North Korea with more than one million barrels of oil since March of this year, according to a recent report by the British Open Source Center research group BBCaccording to
This is about ten times the amount of oil Russia will deliver to North Korea in 2023.
Experts and British Foreign Secretary by David Lammy according to the increased oil deliveries are Russia’s payment to North Korea for the weapons and troops supplied by the country, which Russia uses in the war in Ukraine.
The deliveries violate the sanctions imposed by the UN on North Korea, which prohibit the sale of large quantities of oil to North Korea. The goal of the sanctions is to weaken North Korea’s economy and thus prevent the country from continuing to develop nuclear weapons.
North Korea is thus the only country in the world that is not allowed to buy oil on the open market.
The British research group bases its recent assessment of Russian deliveries on, among other things, satellite images. Pictures obtained by the BBC show that North Korean oil tankers have arrived at the oil terminal in the Russian Far East a total of 43 times in the past eight months.
The report states that the first of these oil shipments took place on March 7, 2024, roughly seven months after it was revealed that North Korea had begun supplying weapons to Russia.
Oil deliveries have since continued throughout the year, with the latest shipment recorded on November 5.
So far, Russia has not commented on the issue.