According to the report, Russia gives one million barrels of oil to North Korea.

Russia is estimated to have supplied more than a million barrels of oil to North Korea since March this year, according to an analysis of satellite imagery by the Open Source Center, a non-profit research group based in the UK.

Leading experts and UK Foreign Secretary David Lemmy have told the BBC that oil is paying for the weapons and troops that Pyongyang has sent to Moscow to fuel its war in Ukraine.

The transfer violates UN sanctions, which bar countries from selling oil to North Korea, except in small quantities, in an effort to curb its economy from developing more nuclear weapons. go

Satellite images shared exclusively with the BBC show more than a dozen different North Korean oil tankers arriving at an oil terminal in Russia’s Far East a total of 43 times over the past eight months.

Further images, taken of ships at sea, show tankers arriving empty, and almost full.

North Korea is the only country in the world that is not allowed to buy oil on the open market. A number of barrels of refined petroleum can achieve this. Limited by the United Nations 500,000 per annumin less quantity than it needs.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry did not respond to our request for comment.

First oil transfer As documented in a new report by the Open Source Center.was on March 7, 2024, seven months after it first emerged that Pyongyang was sending weapons to Moscow.

Delivery continues Thousands of North Korean soldiers They are said to have been sent to Russia to fight, the last recorded being on 5 November.

“While Kim Jong-un is providing a lifeline to Vladimir Putin to continue his war, Russia is quietly providing its lifeline to North Korea,” says Joe Byrne of the Open Source Center.

“This continued flow of oil gives North Korea the stability it has not had since the introduction of these sanctions.”

Four former members of the UN sanctions panel on North Korea have told the BBC that the move is a result of growing ties between Moscow and Pyongyang.

“This transition is fueling Putin’s war machine – it’s oil for the missiles, oil for the artillery and now oil for the troops,” says Hugh Griffiths, who led the panel from 2014 to 2019.

British Foreign Secretary David Lemmy said in a statement to the BBC: “To continue fighting in Ukraine, Russia is increasingly dependent on North Korea for troops and weapons in exchange for oil.”

He added that this “has a direct impact on security in the Korean Peninsula, Europe and the Indo-Pacific”.

Although most people in North Korea depend on coal for their daily lives, oil is essential for running the country’s military. Diesel and petrol are used to power missile launchers and move troops around the country, run weapons factories and fuel the cars of Pyongyang’s elite.

North Korea is allowed to obtain 500,000 barrels, far less than the nine million it uses – meaning that since the cap was introduced in 2017, the country has been forced to Buying oil illegally from criminal networks To make up for this shortfall.

This involves transferring oil between ships at sea — a risky, expensive and time-consuming business, according to Dr. Go Myung-hyun, a senior research fellow at South Korea’s Institute for National Security Strategy, the country’s Attached to a spy agency. .

“Now that Kim Jong-un is getting oil directly, it’s probably of better quality, and he’s likely getting it for free, as in favor of supplying munitions. What could be better than that?” can?”

“A million barrels is nothing to spare for a major oil producer like Russia, but it’s a lot of money for North Korea to receive,” Dr Gu added.

In all 43 voyages tracked through satellite images by the Open Source Center, North Korean-flagged tankers arrived at Russia’s Vostochny port where their trackers were off, obscuring their movements.

Photos show they then returned to one of four ports on North Korea’s east and west coasts.

“Pots appear quietly almost every week,” says Joe Byrne, a researcher at the Open Source Center. “There has been a fairly steady flow since March.”

The team, which has been tracking the tankers since oil restrictions were first introduced, used their knowledge of each ship’s capacity to calculate how many barrels of oil they could carry.

They then studied photographs of ships entering and leaving Vostochny and, in most cases, noted how low they sat in the water and therefore how full they were.

They estimate that the tankers were loaded at 90% of their capacity.

“We can see from some of the images that if the ships were overcrowded they would have sunk,” says Mr Byrne.

Based on this, they calculate that, since March, Russia has given North Korea more than a million barrels of oil — more than double the annual cap, and Ten times the amount Moscow officially gave to Pyongyang. In 2023

It is as follows Assessment by the US government in May that Moscow has already delivered more than 500,000 barrels worth of oil;

Cloud cover means researchers can’t get a clear picture of the harbor every day.

“The whole of August was cloudy, so we couldn’t document a single trip,” says Mr Byrne, to reassure his team that one million barrels is a “baseline” figure.

The oil shipments not only violate UN sanctions on North Korea, signed by Russia as a permanent member of the UN Security Council — but also half of those tracked by the Open Source Center. More than 1,000 trips were made by ships. Individually approved by the United Nations.

This means they should have been arrested upon entering Russian waters.

But in March 2024, three weeks after the first oil transfer was documented, Russia shuts down UN panel It is responsible for monitoring sanctions violations, using its veto in the UN Security Council.

Ashley Hayes, who was working on the panel until it ended, says she saw evidence that the transition had begun.

“We were tracking some of the vessels and companies involved, but our work was stopped, possibly when they had already breached the 500,000 barrel cap”.

Eric Pantonwok, who led the group from 2021-2023, says Russian members of the panel tried to censor its work.

“Now that the panel is over, they can just ignore the rules,” he adds. “The fact that Russia is now encouraging these ships to visit its ports and refuel shows a new level of contempt for these sanctions.”

But Mr Pantonwok, who is on the board of the Open Source Centre, believes the problem is much deeper.

“Now you have these totalitarian regimes increasingly working together to get what they want, ignoring the wishes of the international community.”

He says it’s an “increasingly dangerous” playbook.

“The last thing you want is a North Korean tactical nuclear weapon, for example in Iran.”

As Kim Jong-un increases his support for Vladimir Putin’s war, concerns are growing about what else he will get in return.

The U.S. and South Korea estimate that Pyongyang has now sent Moscow 16,000 shipping containers full of artillery shells and rockets, along with remnants of exploding North Korean ballistic missiles. Recovered on the battlefield. In Ukraine

More recently, Putin and Kim signed a defense pact, which led to thousands of North Korean troops being sent to Russia’s Kursk region, where intelligence reports suggest they are now engaged in combat.

The South Korean government has told the BBC that it will “react strongly to Russia and North Korea’s violation of UN Security Council resolutions”.

His biggest worry is that Moscow will provide Pyongyang with technology to improve its spy satellites and ballistic missiles.

Last month, Seoul’s Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun said there was. A “high chance” North Korea was asking for such help..

“If you’re sending your people to die in a foreign war, a million barrels of oil is not enough,” says Dr. Guo.

Andrey Lankov, an expert on North Korea-Russia relations at Kookmin University in Seoul, agrees.

“I used to think it was not in Russia’s interest to share military technology, but maybe the calculus has changed. The Russians need these troops, and it benefits the North Koreans more.

Additional reporting by Josh Chatham in London and Jack Cowan in Seoul