The White House on Wednesday accused North Korea of covertly transport a “significant number” of artillery shells to Russia in help of its invasion of Ukraine.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby stated the U.S. believes North Korea is “trying to make it appear as though they’re being sent to countries in the Middle East or North Africa.” He declined to offer a particular estimate on the amount of ammunition being despatched to bolster the Russian effort.
Kirby stated North Korea “is covertly supplying” the ammunition to Russia, however that, “we’re still monitoring this to determine whether the shipments are actually received.” Kirby insisted that the North Korean shipments are “not going to change the course of the war,” citing Western efforts to resupply the Ukrainian navy.
The White House wouldn’t specify the mode of transportation or whether or not the U.S. or different nations would try and interdict the shipments to Russia.
The White House revealed the brand new intelligence almost two months after first alleging that U.S. intelligence officers had decided Russian Ministry of Defense was within the course of of buying thousands and thousands of rockets and artillery shells from North Korea for its ongoing struggle in Ukraine.
Even because the administration revealed details about the covert North Korean artillery shell shipments, the White House additionally should downplay its significance.
“We don’t believe that they are in such a quantity that they would change the direction of this war or tangibly change the momentum either in the East or in the South” the place a number of the heaviest preventing in Ukraine is going down, Kirby stated.
The discovering comes after after the Biden administration in August stated that the Russian navy in August took supply of lots of Iranian-manufactured drones to be used on the battlefield in Ukraine.
The Biden administration says that Iran has additionally despatched personnel to Russian-controlled Crimea to offer technical help to the Russians on operation of the drones. Iranian officers have denied they’ve offered drones or different help to Russia.
