North Korea has likely sent missiles as well as ammunition and shells to Russia, Seoul says

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea has likely supplied several types of missiles to Russia to support its war in Ukraine, along with its widely reported shipments of ammunition and shells, South Korea’s military said Thursday.

The assessment was released a day after South Korea’s spy service told lawmakers that North Korea recently provided more than a million artillery shells to Russia amid deepening military cooperation between the two countries, both key U.S. adversaries.

In a background briefing for local journalists, South Korea’s military said that North Korea is suspected of sending an unspecified number of short-range ballistic missiles, anti-tank missiles and portable anti-air missiles to Russia, in addition to rifles, rocket launchers, mortars and shells.

The contents of the briefing were shared with The Associated Press.

Last week, South Korea, the U.S. and Japan strongly condemned what they call North Korea’s supply of munitions and military equipment to Russia, saying that such weapons shipments sharply increase the human toll of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Any weapons trade with North Korea would be a violation of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions, which Russia, a permanent U.N. Security Council member, previously endorsed.

Both Russia and North Korea dismissed the weapons shipment accusations as baseless.

Outside speculation about North Korean arms shipments flared after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un traveled to Russia in September to meet President Vladimir Putin and visit key military facilities. The U.S. and its allies accuse North Korea of seeking high-tech Russian technologies to modernize its arsenal of nuclear weapons and missiles in return for its shipments of conventional arms.