Anchor: The defense ministry has estimated that hundreds of thousands of rounds of artillery shells could have been sent to Russia by North Korea based on the more than one-thousand containers sent by Pyongyang. The assertion comes on the heels of a White House statement last week that it had evidence of an arms deal.
Our Bae Joo-yon has more. 

Report: A defense ministry official on Monday confirmed reports of maritime container transportation between North Korea and Russia with a load capacity equivalent to hundreds of thousands of artillery rounds.

The latest report comes after White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said last Friday that the U.S. had secured intelligence that the North delivered weapons to Russia for use in the war against Ukraine.

Kirby said the regime has delivered more than one-thousand containers of military equipment and munitions to Russia in recent weeks for use in Ukraine.

According to photos provided by the U.S. as evidence of the Pyongyang-Moscow arms trade, a Russian ship loaded containers at North Korea’s Rajin Port last month and moved it to Dunay in eastern Russia, from which the cargo was then moved via rail to an ammunition depot in Tikhoretsk, roughly 290 kilometers from the Ukrainian border.

Any such deal would be a violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1874, which prohibits the export of all weapons and related materials from the North.

Kirby said the U.S. condemns North Korea for providing Russia with military equipment that can be used to attack Ukrainian cities and kill civilians and vowed to sanction those who assist arms trade between the two nations.

A foreign ministry official in Seoul said last Sunday that cooperation between Russia and North Korea related to arms trading is a clear violation of UN Security Council resolutions and poses a serious threat to peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.

The official said the government, in close coordination with the U.S. and other allies, will monitor the trends in military cooperation between North Korea and Russia and consider additional measures.

That coordination extended to a visit by foreign minister Park Jin to the nuclear-powered USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier on Sunday, which is docked in Busan as a show of force against Pyongyang’s threats, as well as a meeting between the allies’ nuclear envoys along with their Japanese counterpart in Indonesia on Monday and Tuesday to discuss North Korea issues.
Bae Joo-yon, KBS World Radio News.