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North Korea currently serves as Russia’s main military ally in the ongoing aggression against Ukraine, and it would be extremely difficult for Moscow to sustain its war effort without arms supplies from the DPRK.
That’s according to Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s defense intelligence, who spoke on the air of the national telethon, Ukrinform reports.
“Russia’s main military ally today is North Korea, which supplies them with huge amounts of weapons. This is critical for them as it would be very difficult for them to fight without those weapons. Critically difficult, I’d put it this way,” Budanov said.
According to the chief of the agency, known as the GUR, the circle of nations supporting Russia remains stable and does not change much. However, the assistance from Belarus or Iran is rather limited. The governments of these countries do support Russia but they “have not completely lost their minds”, noted the official.
He also believes it is unrealistic for Russia expand that circle of allies. The Kremlin’s efforts toward rallying countries in Africa, Asia, even Latin America yielded little effect. Although Russia did recruit a few mercenaries and received some aviation spare parts from Cuba, this “isn’t significant”.
At the same time, Budanov referred to North Korea as “a real problem”.
As Ukrinform reported earlier, citing the U.S. Department of State, North Korea has since September 2023 delivered to Russia over 10,000 containers of ammunition and related materiel for use in the war against Ukraine.
According to the latest data, Ukraine has recorded some 50 cases where Russia used North Korean missiles against Ukraine, including in the deadly Kharkiv strike on January 2.
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