Russia's commercial shipments of refined petroleum to North Korea exceed the annual limits set by the U.N. Security Council to rein in Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program, according to U.S. officials.
In March alone, Russia shipped more than 165,000 barrels of refined petroleum to North Korea, an amount equal to one-third of the entire annual global cap of 500,000 barrels that can be shipped to the nation, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said on Thursday.
The fuel sales in violation of council limits are all the more alarming, he indicated, because Russia is one of the "P-5," the five permanent, veto-wielding members of the 15-nation council that was given responsibility for maintaining international peace and security after World War II.
“Russia’s actions are unprecedented for a member of the P-5 to break a longstanding, consistent effort by the United Nations Security Council to support denuclearization and nonproliferation efforts,” Kirby said, adding the U.S. will keep up sanctions "against all those working to facilitate arms and refined petroleum transfers” between Russia and North Korea.
Kirby said Russia has been shipping refined petroleum from Port Vostochny to North Korea at the same time that Moscow used its veto power on the council to force the disbandment of a U.N. panel of experts that has for the past 15 years monitored the enforcement of U.N. nuclear sanctions against North Korea.
Fuel for weapons
Russia blocked the panel's usually routine annual renewal at a meeting in late March, forcing it to dissolve at the end of April. That leaves no official U.N. entity to monitor the sanctions, which were first imposed in 2006 and will remain in place.
U.S. State Department spokesperson Matt Miller, however, said the United States "will continue to impose sanctions against those working to facilitate arms and refined petroleum transfers" between Russia and North Korea. The U.S. is working with Australia, the European Union, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and the United Kingdom to announce new sanctions over the fuel shipments, he said.
North Korea has been providing Russia with weapons to use against Ukraine since Moscow's full-scale invasion of its Western neighbor in Feb. 2022, according to U.S. officials. North Korea and Russia have both denied the accusations.
A report from the U.N. monitoring panel found that the debris recovered from a missile that landed in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Jan. 2 comes from a North Korea Hwasong-11 series missile that violates the U.N. arms embargo on North Korea, Reuters reported.
U.S. intelligence shows Russia is inceasingly dependent on North Korea and Iran for arms against Ukraine. The fuel shipments are facilitated by the close proximity of Port Vostochny with North Korea's ports on the Sea of Japan.
