Sergei Shoigu

• US national security council official John Kirby noted on August 30 that arms transfer negotiations between North Korea and Russia are “actively advancing” as the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, seeks to feed his war machine.
• This would be a huge boost to the DPRK’s weapons programmes and, at the same time, greatly to the detriment of the UN sanctions regime that seeks to limit those programmes.

Flourishing military relationship

• Recent developments have suggested a burgeoning arms trading relationship, despite denials from North Korea and the recently deceased Wagner Group owner, Yevgeny Prighozin.
• In September 2022, the US suggested that the DPRK was supplying Russia with artillery shells in “significant” numbers.
• In July, the US sanctioned North Korean arms dealer Rim Yong Hyok for facilitating unspecified arms transfers to the Wagner Group.

Brothers in arms

• Most significantly, Shoigu was guided around an arms exhibition by the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un.
• The exhibition featured intercontinental ballistic missiles, long-range hypersonic missiles and newly unveiled advanced drones, among a range of other weapons systems.
• North Korean arms exports have grown steadily along with its defence industrial base since the 1970s.
• The UN arms embargos have prohibited the import of major weapons systems from North Korea from 2006, and the import of all arms from North Korea from 2009.

Pyongyang hungry for tech

• But its purchases will undermine the North Korea sanctions regime and help to generate revenue for the Kim regime.
• It could also spur a broader renaissance for North Korea’s arms export enterprise.
• Russia has a vast military, nuclear and missile industrial complex, which – although much of it is struggling because of sanctions – could provide Pyongyang with much-needed technological fruits.
• But the potential technological payoff for Pyongyang could pose longer-term hazards for the world and must also be considered.

• One expert pondering the timing of the counteroffensive is Cyrille Bret, an expert in defence studies at Sciences Po, who asks: why now and to what end?
• But there are other factors – strategic and political – that would have driven Zelensky to give the order to begin.
• It could be awkward, to say the least, writes Tracey German, a professor of conflict and security at King’s College London.
• Read more:
  Ukraine war: Kremlin attempt to control private militaries like Wagner Group fails to address rivalry between factions

From the sky to the seabed

• Christopher Morris, who teaches military strategy at the University of Portsmouth, believes access to superior commercial satellite tech has given Ukraine a significant edge in targeting Russian armour.
• Hi-res images of Russian defensive installations will allow Ukraine’s planners to work out ways to target, destroy or circumvent them.
• Read more:
  Ukraine war: Kremlin's threat to interfere with undersea data cables may be bluster, but must be taken seriously

Neighbourhood threat

• Vladimir Putin announced the other day to let us know he planned to station nuclear warheads in neighbouring Belarus.
• Belarus was the first former Soviet bloc country to get rid of its nukes after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
• Since the late 1990s, the two countries have been what’s known as a “union state” (read, decisions are taken mainly in Moscow).
• Read more:
  Ukraine war: Russia's threat to station nuclear warheads in Belarus – what you need to know

Prospects for peace?