- Ukraine’s military intelligence chief said North Korea is covering 50% of Russia’s war ammo needs.
- Kyrylo Budanov said it’s another sign of how heavily Pyongyang is contributing to the war.
- His comment also comes as Ukraine has been trying to hit Russia’s ammo supply.
North Korea is providing Russia with half of the ammunition used by Moscow against Ukraine, the head of Kyiv’s military intelligence agency said on Sunday.
“They heavily rely on — well, we can now say it — their strategic ally, North Korea, that is covering for practically 50% of Russia’s need for munitions,” Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence service, told reporters. “Artillery shells, in particular.”
Speaking at a press conference in Kyiv, Budanov said Pyongyang was also providing Russia with 155mm self-propelled howitzers and multiple-launch rocket systems. He has previously said that these were the M1989 “Koksan” howitzer and the M1991 system.
Over the last year, North Korea has increasingly dedicated resources to help Russia sustain its war against Ukraine. It deployed an estimated 11,000 to 12,000 troops in Kursk late last year.
Pyongyang’s involvement comes as Moscow and Kyiv focus on outlasting each other along the largely stagnant front lines and as Russia digs deep into its economy to maintain recruitment and weapons production.
North Korea isn’t giving its resources away for free. Its leader, Kim Jong Un, is reported by South Korean intelligence to be receiving technological assistance from Russian experts, as well as food and cash from Moscow.
Large-scale ammunition shipments from Pyongyang could especially frustrate Ukraine’s effort to exhaust Moscow’s supply by targeting factories and depots deep inside Russian territory with drone strikes.
Ukraine’s military chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said in January that Russia was expending about 40,000 artillery rounds per day, but that the strikes had pushed that count “significantly lower.”
Meanwhile, the head of Ukraine’s foreign intelligence, Oleh Ivashchenko, also said at the Sunday press conference that Russia plans to locally manufacture 7 million artillery rounds and mines in 2025.
“Russia clearly understands that it produces more of those than the rest of the European countries together,” Ivashchenko said.
He added that Russia intends to produce 3,000 long-range precision missiles this year.
In comparison, the US is planning to produce 100,000 shells a month by the summer of 2025, or 1.2 million a year. And that’s already a ramped-up production cycle.
The European Union has said that it hopes to produce 2 million shells in 2025.
The Russian Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment sent by Business Insider outside regular business hours.
