{"id":18228,"date":"2024-11-22T07:28:09","date_gmt":"2024-11-22T07:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/?p=18228"},"modified":"2024-11-22T07:28:09","modified_gmt":"2024-11-22T07:28:09","slug":"russia-gives-n-korea-million-barrels-of-oil-breaking-sanctions-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/?p=18228","title":{"rendered":"Russia gives N Korea million barrels of oil, breaking sanctions: report"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"BBCBBC<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The latest of 43 journeys made by North Korean oil tankers to Russia since March 2024, documented by the Open Source Centre<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Russia is estimated to have supplied North Korea with more than a million barrels of oil since March this year, according to satellite imagery analysis from the Open Source Centre, a non-profit research group based in the UK.<\/p>\n

The oil is payment for the weapons and troops Pyongyang has sent Moscow to fuel its war in Ukraine, leading experts and UK Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, have told the BBC.<\/p>\n

These transfers violate UN sanctions, which ban countries from selling oil to North Korea, except in small quantities, in an attempt to stifle its economy to prevent it from further developing nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n

The satellite images, shared exclusively with the BBC, show more than a dozen different North Korean oil tankers arriving at an oil terminal in Russia\u2019s Far East a total of 43 times over the past eight months. <\/p>\n

Further pictures, taken of the ships at sea, appear to show the tankers arriving empty, and leaving almost full.<\/p>\n

North Korea is the only country in the world not allowed to buy oil on the open market. The number of barrels of refined petroleum it can receive is capped by the United Nations <\/a>at 500,000 annually<\/a>, well below the amount it needs.<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s foreign ministry did not respond to our request for comment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The first oil transfer documented by the Open Source Centre in a new report<\/a>, was on 7 March 2024, seven months after it first emerged Pyongyang was sending Moscow weapons. <\/p>\n

The shipments have continued as thousands of North Korean troops<\/a> are reported to have been sent to Russia to fight, with the last one recorded on 5 November.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile Kim Jong Un is providing Vladimir Putin with a lifeline to continue his war, Russia is quietly providing North Korea with a lifeline of its own,\u201d says Joe Byrne from the Open Source Centre. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis steady flow of oil gives North Korea a level of stability it hasn\u2019t had since these sanctions were introduced.\u201d<\/p>\n

Four former members of a UN panel responsible for tracking the sanctions on North Korea have told the BBC the transfers are a consequence of increasing ties between Moscow and Pyongyang.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese transfers are fuelling Putin\u2019s war machine \u2013 this is oil for missiles, oil for artillery and now oil for soldiers,\u201d says Hugh Griffiths, who led the panel from 2014 to 2019.<\/p>\n

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy has told the BBC in a statement: \u201cTo keep fighting in Ukraine, Russia has become increasingly reliant on North Korea for troops and weapons in exchange for oil.” <\/p>\n

He added that this was \u201chaving a direct impact on security in the Korean peninsula, Europe and Indo-Pacific”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Graphic<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Easy and cheap oil supply<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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While most people in North Korea rely on coal for their daily lives, oil is essential for running the country\u2019s military. Diesel and petrol are used to transport missile launchers and troops around the country, run munitions factories and fuel the cars of Pyongyang\u2019s elite.<\/p>\n

The 500,000 barrels North Korea is allowed to receive fall far short of the nine million it consumes \u2013 meaning that since the cap was introduced in 2017, the country has been forced to buy oil illicitly from criminal networks<\/a> to make up this deficit.<\/p>\n

This involves transferring the oil between ships out at sea \u2013 a risky, expensive and time-consuming business, according to Dr Go Myong-hyun, a senior research fellow at South Korea\u2019s Institute for National Security Strategy, which is linked to the country\u2019s spy agency.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow Kim Jong Un is getting oil directly, it\u2019s likely better quality, and chances are he\u2019s getting it for free, as quid pro quo for supplying munitions. What could be better than that?”<\/p>\n

\u201cA million barrels is nothing for a large oil producer like Russia to release, but it is a substantial amount for North Korea to receive,\u201d Dr Go adds.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tracking the \u2018silent\u2019 transfers<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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In all 43 of the journeys tracked by the Open Source Centre using satellite images, the North Korean-flagged tankers arrived at Russia\u2019s Vostochny Port with their trackers switched off, concealing their movements. <\/p>\n

The images show they then made their way back to one of four ports on North Korea\u2019s east and west coast.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe vessels appear silently, almost every week,\u201d says Joe Byrne, the researcher from the Open Source Centre. \u201cSince March there\u2019s been a fairly constant flow.\u201d<\/p>\n

The team, which has been tracking these tankers since the oil sanctions were first introduced, used their knowledge of each ship\u2019s capacity to calculate how many oil barrels they could carry. <\/p>\n

Then they studied images of the ships entering and leaving Vostochny and, in most instances, could see how low they sat in the water and, therefore, how full they were.<\/p>\n

The tankers, they assess, were loaded to 90% of their capacity. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe can see from some of the images that if the ships were any fuller they would sink,\u201d Mr Byrne says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"A<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n
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Based on this, they calculate that, since March, Russia has given North Korea more than a million barrels of oil – more than double the annual cap, and around ten times the amount Moscow officially gave Pyongyang<\/a> in 2023. <\/p>\n

This follows an assessment by the US government in May<\/a> that Moscow had already supplied more than 500,000 barrels\u2019 worth of oil.<\/p>\n

Cloud cover means the researchers cannot get a clear image of the port every day.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole of August was cloudy, so we weren\u2019t able to document a single trip,\u201d Mr Byrne says, leading his team to believe that one million barrels is a \u201cbaseline\u201d figure.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"A<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

A \u2018new level of contempt\u2019 for sanctions<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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Not only do these oil deliveries breach UN sanctions on North Korea, that Russia, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, signed off on \u2013 but also, more than half of the journeys tracked by the Open Source Centre were made by vessels that have been individually sanctioned by the UN. <\/p>\n

This means they should have been impounded upon entering Russian waters.<\/p>\n

But in March 2024, three weeks after the first oil transfer was documented, Russia disbanded the UN panel<\/a> responsible for monitoring sanctions violations, by using its veto at the UN Security Council.<\/p>\n

Ashley Hess, who was working on the panel up until its collapse, says they saw evidence the transfers had started. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe were tracking some of the ships and companies involved, but our work was stopped, possibly after they had already breached the 500,000-barrel cap\u201d.<\/p>\n

Eric Penton-Voak, who led the group from 2021-2023, says the Russian members on the panel tried to censor its work. <\/p>\n

\u201cNow the panel is gone, they can simply ignore the rules,\u201d he adds. \u201cThe fact that Russia is now encouraging these ships to visit its ports and load up with oil shows a new level of contempt for these sanctions.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Mr Penton-Voak, who is on the board of the Open Source Centre, thinks the problem runs much deeper. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou now have these autocratic regimes increasingly working together to help one another achieve whatever it is they want, and ignoring the wishes of the international community.\u201d <\/p>\n

This is an \u201cincreasingly dangerous\u201d playbook, he argues. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe last thing you want is a North Korean tactical nuclear weapon turning up in Iran, for instance.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Oil the tip of the iceberg?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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As Kim Jong Un steps up his support for Vladimir Putin\u2019s war, concern is growing over what else he will receive in return. <\/p>\n

The US and South Korea estimate Pyongyang has now sent Moscow 16,000 shipping containers filled with artillery shells and rockets, while remnants of exploded North Korean ballistic missiles have been recovered on the battlefield<\/a> in Ukraine.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"GettyGetty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Since the start of the invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has strengthened ties with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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More recently, Putin and Kim signed a defence pact, leading to thousands of North Korean troops being sent to Russia\u2019s Kursk region, where intelligence reports indicate they are now engaged in battle.<\/p>\n

The South Korean government has told the BBC it would \u201csternly respond to the violation of the UN Security Council resolutions by Russia and North Korea\u201d.<\/p>\n

Its biggest worry is that Moscow will provide Pyongyang with technology to improve its spy satellites and ballistic missiles. <\/p>\n

Last month, Seoul\u2019s defence minister, Kim Yong-hyun, stated there was a \u201chigh chance\u201d North Korea was asking for such help<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re sending your people to die in a foreign war, a million barrels of oil is just not sufficient reward,\u201d Dr Go says.<\/p>\n

Andrei Lankov, an expert in North Korea-Russia relations at Seoul\u2019s Kookmin University, agrees. <\/p>\n

\u201cI used to think it was not in Russia\u2019s interest to share military technology, but perhaps its calculus has changed. The Russians need these troops, and this gives the North Koreans more leverage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by Josh Cheetham in London and Jake Kwon in Seoul<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Source: <\/em> www.bbc.com\u2026<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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