Ukraine war: What weapons could North Korea send to Russia?

Hugh Griffiths, an independent sanctions consultant, told the news agency Reuters that North Korea has a huge stockpile of "dumb" artillery shells and rockets of Soviet-era munitions that date back to the 1950s.

The former coordinator for a UN panel of experts that monitors sanctions on North Korea said, "The North Koreans do have tremendous stockpiles of relatively primitive artillery and rocket systems some of which are of a similar type and calibre used by the Russians to shell Ukrainian cities and towns."

It comes after the White House said Russia could be about to buy millions of artillery shells and rockets from old Cold-War ally North Korea.

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According to Bruce Bechtol, a professor at Angelo State University in Texas, who has done research on North Korea's arms sales, Pyongyang is most likely to supply 122mm rocket launchers, 107mm Katyusha rockets, 155mm or 122mm artillery shells, or other small arms ammunition for machine guns or automatic rifles.

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He believes that the reason Russia is asking North Korea for weapons is that Moscow preparing for a major offensive that requires extra supplies.

Bechtol said that the deal would not be unprecedented as North Korea sold ammunition to both Iran and Syria and to Hezbollah during the Syrian civil war.

Accusing North Korea of dodging sanctions to supply weapons to Syria and Myanmar, Griffiths said a deal with Russia could be larger than many of those previous shipments.

North Korea would likely send any arms to Russia by rail across their shared border as the deal would be a sanctions violation and therefore ships could be subject to seizure while at sea.

Highlighting would be much less risky for the North Koreans to smuggle munitions illegally into Russia than it is for them to send military equipment or munitions via sea or air to Myanmar or Syria, Griffiths noted that the ''North Koreans would not be hesitant to deplete their stockpiles for such an important and unusual client.''

(With inputs from agencies)

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