North Korea may have earned over $14 billion from Russia’s war in Ukraine through arms exports and the deployment of troops, according to a South Korean think tank.
A new report, published by the Seoul-based Institute for National Security Strategy, estimates that Pyongyang earned between $7.67 billion and $14.4 billion in foreign currency for its military assistance to Moscow from August 2023 to December last year.
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North Korea has forged a close alliance with Moscow and is believed to have sent around 20,000 troops to support its efforts in Ukraine over the past two years.
Pyongyang has also supplied Russia with military equipment, including artillery shells and rockets, delivering approximately 350,000 rounds per month.
The report estimates that North Korea earned about $620 million from troop deployments, including soldier wages and death compensation, with the rest coming from military supplies.
However, the authorities in Pyongyang have only received a fraction of the promised earnings, the report says, with researchers estimating that between 4% to 19.6% of the total has been paid.
Author Lim Soo-ho concluded that the support supplied to Russia is likely to be repaid in military technologies.
“It is highly likely that the majority (80-96%) of the payments for troop deployment and military supplies exports have been, or will be, received in the form of sensitive military technology or related precision parts and materials that are difficult to observe by satellite,” the author said.
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