Russia began supplying oil to North Korea despite UN sanctions

Russia began supplying oil directly to North Korea in defiance of United Nations sanctions. The Financial Times reports this.

In March 2024, at least five North Korean tankers left the Russian port of Vostochny in Primorye, where they likely loaded oil. The FT refers to satellite images provided by the British think tank Royal United Services Institute. Judging by the footage, the first such delivery took place on March 7. Two tankers left the Vostochny port for the North Korean port of Chongjin, where they apparently unloaded. The FT does not say where the other three went.

“The vessels we saw at the Russian terminals are some of the largest in the North Korean fleet, and they constantly enter and leave the [Russian] port. Some of these tankers are also UN-listed, meaning they cannot even enter foreign ports, let alone supply oil,” said Rusi researcher Joseph Byrne.

The FT notes that the supply of raw materials began after the DPRK began supplying Russia in August 2023 with thousands of containers of ammunition that Moscow is using in the war in Ukraine.

“What we see now is a clear arms-for-oil barter agreement that openly violates the sanctions that Vladimir Putin personally signed. “This situation illustrates Russia’s path in recent years from a state that defies international rules to a true criminal state,” said Hugh Griffiths, a former coordinator of the UN team that monitors sanctions on North Korea.

Go Myung-hyun, a senior researcher at the South Korean state think tank Institute for National Security Strategy, also suggested in a conversation with FT that Moscow and Pyongyang are trading weapons for oil.

“For the past seven years, Pyongyang has had to pay high prices for the petroleum products it needs as it relies on a complex and expensive network of criminal brokers and ship-to-ship transportation at sea. North Korea now appears to have secured a steady supply of oil, either at a deep discount or as direct payment for the ammunition it supplies to Moscow. This will free up resources for North Korea's military and its nuclear weapons program," he said.

All five North Korean tankers entered the Vostochny port with their transponders turned off, FT notes. One of the ships, named Paek Yang San 1, was identified by the UN as a vessel involved in illegal ship-to-ship oil transfers. In this way, the DPRK bypasses the import restrictions - under the terms of the sanctions regime, the country can receive only 500,000 barrels of oil and oil products per year, and only with notification to the UN sanctions committee.

Rusi researchers have calculated that the recorded oil deliveries from the port in the Far East in a matter of weeks could amount to 125 thousand barrels of petroleum products - this is a quarter of the permitted annual quota.

These are the first documented deliveries from Russia since the UN Security Council, with Moscow's approval, imposed restrictions on oil supplies to North Korea in 2017 in response to Pyongyang's nuclear weapons tests.

Western diplomats are worried that Russia could veto an extension of the mandate of the UN panel that monitors sanctions on North Korea. Three people familiar with the discussion between UN members in New York told the FT about this.

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