It must make for an interesting sales pitch when they’re at an arms convention. " Buy what we make so we can afford to buy what we use".
Russia and N. Korea do share a border (a very small one) and it does have a rail line crossing it, so I imagine that is where most of the shipping is done.
IMHO as always.
Participation in a sanctions regime is generally voluntary, either directly (i.e. agreeing to join a sanctions program) or indirectly (i.e. being a signatory to a treaty which obliges one to honor the program). Unless I’ve seriously overlooked something, North Korea hasn’t agreed to levy sanctions on Russia, so whatever they’re doing can’t be a violation of an effort they’re not participating in. The US can design a sanctions regime and ask other countries to join, but they can’t impose compliance unilaterally.
Which is not to say the US can’t try to punish them for being a bad actor.
It’s just not, I think, a matter of their having reneged on any kind of agreement. This may feel like a bit of semantic hair-splitting, but I don’t believe one can say North Korea is violating sanctions when it hasn’t agreed to honor them.
Pretty much. It’s much the same why no one is bombing India for buying Russian oil on the cheap.
Can’t find it now but in a recent news article on this there was a photo of a ship supposedly loaded with NK arms for Russia. That’s what I was thinking of.
Looking at Google Maps (which I admit is not the greatest source), it looks like a ship could travel between the N. Korean port of Chongjin to the Russian port of Vladivostok while staying inside Russian/N. Korean territorial waters. I would imagine that the Russian Pacific fleet (such as it is), keeps a sharp eye on any armament shipments making the trip.
Of course, that still leaves the cargo 6,000 miles (10,000km) from the front lines, so Russian transportation can add much time to the journey.
There’s confirmation that N Korea is selling ballistic missiles to Russia. But the US hasn’t said what they have. It seems like broken pieces of the missile’s wiring and engine would be very helpful.
Bombs have been identified that way for a long time.
A couple-three months ago, there were reports about explosions on the Trans-Siberian Railway. One was in a tunnel (collapsing it) and the other on a bridge on an alternate route around the tunnel. Supposedly the two combined to cut the overall line between eastern and western Russia. (Much speculation that Ukrainian operatives were responsible.) I haven’t heard more about this, so don’t know if they’ve found another way to ship the N Korean war materiel, but perhaps they have.
Just rumors so far, as the more serious media aren’t mentioning it yet.
That rumour seems entirely unfounded. I don’t know the origin, but a less rigourous Ukraine news aggregator account (@Visegrad24) posted it as “breaking” and “unconfirmed”, with no source attributed. Then various NAFO shitposters started repeating it just in hopes of giving it legs. Probably hoping to make the Kremlin deny it, so they could trot out the “the Kremlin denied it, so it must be true” line. And in fact, the Kremlin has denied it, and NAFO are pretending to take that as evidence that he’s dead.
NAFO?
(stupid character limit making me add extraneous clutter)
North Atlantic Fellas Organization, a grassroots pro-Ukraine movement on Twitter that swarm pro-Russian propaganda on Twitter with silly memes. I expect there’s a Wikipedia article about them. Of course there is. Probably has to be locked from editing most of the time to prevent NAFO members from adding tall tales about their exploits.
Ukraine better get busy with preparing ground support and air defense for these planes.
I assume the maintenance crews are training in Denmark?
Partisans are watching Russian troops in the occupied regions. That could be valuable intel for Ukraine
The guardian live feed
AFAIK there are 80 Ukrainians training in Denmark, 6 pilots and the rest support.
I didn’t realise this had not already been done … !
Some assets have been seized, notably various yachts owned by Russian oligarchs. Perhaps there’s other assets still not seized.
UK MOD says that Russia is losing about 300 more soldiers per day that they were a year ago. Likely because they are lower quality conscripts.
Also reports that Russia is restarting the organization SMERSH, which I totally thought was a James Bond contrivance! Apparently it was an organization started by Joseph Stalin which translates as “Death to spies”.
That sounds about right. It takes a big team to keep F-16’s safely flying. Even rearming a jet takes several people and the right equipment to handle missiles.
That article is mostly referring to monetary assets that have been frozen, AIUI. It is suggesting they be seized and given to Ukraine.
I recall Ukraine pledged not to use HIMARS or long range missiles to strike inside Russia.
They’ve been pretty effective using other weapons, like drones to strike deep inside Russia.
The Guardian live feed