North Korea provided enough heavy artillery to arm three Russian brigades and dispatched around 8,000 workers to Russia in 2024 alone, with plans to send thousands more in 2025, according to a report by a Seoul-led multilateral sanctions monitoring group released Thursday.
The first-ever topic-specific report penned by the Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team since its launch in Seoul in October 2024 offered the detailed government-level official confirmation of illicit military cooperation and labor transfers between Pyongyang and Moscow.
The findings by the MSMT — established with the participation of 11 member countries, including South Korea, the United States and Japan — pointed to clear violations of United Nations Security Council resolutions. The MSMT was launched as an alternative to the now-defunct UN monitoring panel on North Korea sanctions, which was dissolved following Russia’s use of its veto power in April 2024.
According to notable new findings in the report, over 200 pieces of heavy artillery — enough to equip three brigades — were transferred in 2024 alone. This included fully assembled military vehicles, multiple-rocket launchers, self-propelled guns and ammunition resupply vehicles.
Specifically, the transfers included North Korean-made 170 mm self-propelled artillery and 240 mm multiple rocket launchers.
In addition, approximately 9 million shells and multiple rocket launcher rounds were transferred from North Korea to Russia between January and mid-December 2024.
The report also found that the weapons were delivered in 49 shipments via Russian cargo vessels from North Korea, then transported by rail from ports in the Russian Far East to ammunition depots in central and western Russia.
Since September 2023, more than 20,000 containers worth of shells and related materials have been provided, the report said. In detail, North Korea's military supplies include 82 mm, 122 mm, 130 mm, 152 mm and 170 mm shells used in Russia’s D-20 and D-30 towed howitzers, M-30 and M-46 howitzers and D-74 guns.
The report also highlighted the transfer of weapons from Russia to North Korea.
At least one Pantsir-class combat vehicle was transferred, the report found — indicating that Russia provided North Korea with either an actual Pantsir-S1 mobile air defense system or a comparable system with similar capabilities.
North Korea has also been dispatching workers to Russia in violation of UN Security Council Resolutions 2375 and 2397 to illegally earn foreign currency.
The report underscores North Korea’s plans to send several thousand more workers to Russia in the first half of 2025, with personnel expected to be funneled into the construction, toll processing, IT and health care sectors.
In 2024, around 8,000 North Korean workers were already dispatched to Russia. Between December 2024 and February 2025, 481 North Korean workers were sent — 198 in construction and 283 in the textile industry, according to the report.
The MSMT has agreed to release topic-specific reports, and the first focuses primarily on unlawful North Korea–Russia military cooperation, consolidating information provided by participating member states and open-source intelligence organizations.
"The report will assist with the full implementation of UN sanctions by the international community," read a joint English-language statement from the 11 MSMT member countries, issued on the occasion of the report’s release. "With the release of the first MSMT report, we underscore once again our shared determination to fully implement relevant UNSCRs."
The MSMT was established with the initiative of Seoul around seven months after Russia, using its veto as a permanent member of the UN Security Council in late March last year, blocked the renewal of the 1718 Committee Panel of Experts' mandate. Since 2009, the Panel of Experts has been tasked with overseeing the enforcement of UN Security Council resolutions on North Korea and issuing biannual reports on sanctions violations.
We will continue our efforts to monitor the implementation of UNSCRs on the DPRK and raise awareness of ongoing attempts to violate and evade UN sanctions," the joint statement underscored, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
dagyumji@heraldcorp.com
