BBC
The last of 43 trips by North Korean tankers to Russia since March 2024, documented by the Open Source Center
Russia is estimated to have supplied North Korea with more than 1 million barrels of oil since March this year, according to analysis of satellite images by the Open Source Center, a nonprofit research group. based in the UK.
The oil is used to pay for the weapons and troops that Pyongyang has sent to Moscow to fuel its war in Ukraine, leading experts and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy told the BBC.
The transfers violate U.N. sanctions, which prohibit countries from selling oil to North Korea except in small quantities, in an effort to stifle its economy and prevent it from developing more nuclear weapons.
Satellite images, shared exclusively with the BBC, show more than a dozen different North Korean tankers arriving at an oil terminal in the Russian Far East a total of 43 times over the past eight months.
Other photos, taken of ships at sea, appear to show tankers arriving empty and leaving almost full.
North Korea is the only country in the world not allowed to buy oil on the open market. The number of barrels of refined oil it can receive is capped by the United Nations at 500,000 per year, well below the amount it needs.
The Russian Foreign Ministry did not respond to our request for comment.
The first oil transfer documented by the Open Source Center in a new report took place on March 7, 2024, seven months after it was revealed that Pyongyang was sending weapons to Moscow.
The expeditions continued as thousands of North Korean troops were reportedly sent to Russia to fight, with the last recorded on November 5.
“While Kim Jong Un is providing Vladimir Putin with a lifeline to continue his war, Russia is quietly providing North Korea with its own lifeline,” says Joe Byrne of the Open Source Center.
“This constant flow of oil gives North Korea a level of stability it has not experienced since these sanctions were introduced.”
Four former members of a UN committee monitoring sanctions against North Korea told the BBC the transfers were a consequence of strengthening ties between Moscow and Pyongyang.
“These transfers fuel Putin's war machine – it's oil for missiles, oil for artillery and now oil for soldiers,” says Hugh Griffiths, who led the panel from 2014 to 2019.
British Foreign Secretary David Lammy told the BBC in a statement: “To continue fighting in Ukraine, Russia is increasingly dependent on North Korea for its troops and weapons in exchange for oil. »
He added that this “has a direct impact on security on the Korean Peninsula, Europe and the Indo-Pacific.”
Easy and cheap oil supply
While most North Koreans rely on coal for their daily lives, oil is essential to the functioning of the country's military. Diesel and gasoline are used to transport missile launchers and troops across the country, operate munitions factories and fuel the cars of North Korea's elite.
The 500,000 barrels North Korea is allowed to receive is far less than the nine million it consumes – meaning that since the cap was introduced in 2017, the country has been forced to buy oil illegally from criminal networks to fill this gap.
This involves transferring oil between ships at sea – a risky, expensive and time-consuming activity, according to Dr Go Myong-hyun, a senior researcher at South Korea's Institute for National Security Strategy, which is linked to the country's intelligence agency. .
“Now Kim Jong Un is getting oil directly, it is probably of better quality, and he is likely to get it for free, in return for the supply of ammunition. What's better than that? »
“A million barrels is nothing for a major oil producer like Russia, but it is a substantial amount for North Korea,” adds Dr. Go.
Tracking “silent” transfers
During the 43 voyages tracked by the Open Source Center using satellite images, the North Korean-flagged tankers arrived at the Russian port of Vostochny with their trackers turned off, thereby concealing their movements.
The footage shows they then returned to one of four ports on North Korea's east and west coasts.
“The ships appear silently, almost every week,” says Joe Byrne, a researcher at the Open Source Center. “Since March, there’s been a pretty constant flow.”
The team, which has been tracking these tankers since the introduction of oil sanctions, used their knowledge of each vessel's capacity to calculate how many barrels of oil they could carry.
Then they studied footage of ships entering and leaving Vostochny and, in most cases, were able to see how low they were in the water and, therefore, how full they were.
The tankers, they estimate, were loaded to 90% of their capacity.
“We can see in some images that if the ships were fuller they would sink,” says Mr Byrne.
On this basis, they calculate that since March, Russia has given North Korea more than a million barrels of oil, more than double the annual cap, and about ten times the amount officially given by Moscow to Pyongyang in 2023.
This follows a US government assessment in May that Moscow had already supplied more than 500,000 barrels of oil.
Cloud cover prevents researchers from getting a clear picture of the port each day.
“The whole month of August was cloudy, so we couldn't document a single trip,” says Mr. Byrne, leading his team to believe that a million barrels is a “reference” number.
A “new level of contempt” for sanctions
Not only do these oil shipments violate UN sanctions against North Korea, which Russia, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, signed – but also, more than half of the trips tracked by the Open Source Center were carried out by vessels that have been individually sanctioned by the UN.
This means that they should have been seized as soon as they entered Russian waters.
But in March 2024, three weeks after the first oil transfer was documented, Russia dissolved the UN committee monitoring sanctions violations, using its veto in the UN Security Council.
Ashley Hess, who worked on the panel until its collapse, says she saw evidence that the transfers had begun.
“We were tracking some of the ships and companies involved, but our work was stopped, perhaps after they had already exceeded the 500,000 barrel cap.”
Eric Penton-Voak, who led the group from 2021 to 2023, claims Russian members of the panel tried to censor his work.
“Now that the panel is no longer there, they can just ignore the rules,” he adds. “The fact that Russia is now encouraging these ships to visit its ports and load oil shows a new level of contempt for these sanctions. »
But Mr. Penton-Voak, who sits on the board of the Open Source Center, thinks the problem goes much deeper.
“Today, these autocratic regimes are increasingly working together to help each other achieve what they want, and ignoring the wishes of the international community. »
This is an “increasingly dangerous” strategy, he says.
“The last thing you want is for a North Korean tactical nuclear weapon to appear in Iran, for example.”
Oil the tip of the iceberg?
As Kim Jong Un steps up his support for Vladimir Putin's war, concern is growing over what else he will get in return.
The United States and South Korea estimate that Pyongyang has now sent 16,000 containers filled with artillery shells and rockets to Moscow, while remnants of exploded North Korean ballistic missiles have been recovered from the battlefield in Ukraine.
Getty Images
Since the start of the invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has strengthened ties with North Korea's Kim Jong Un.
Most recently, Putin and Kim signed a defense deal, which led to thousands of North Korean troops being sent to Russia's Kursk region, where intelligence reports indicate they are now engaged in battle.
The South Korean government told the BBC it would “respond severely to Russia and North Korea's violation of UN Security Council resolutions.”
His biggest worry is that Moscow will provide Pyongyang with the technology needed to improve its spy satellites and ballistic missiles.
Last month, Seoul's Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun said there was a “high chance” that North Korea would request such aid.
“If you send your people to die in a foreign war, a million barrels of oil is simply not enough reward,” says Dr. Go.
Andrei Lankov, an expert on North Korea-Russia relations at Kookmin University in Seoul, agrees.
“I previously thought that sharing military technology was not in Russia's interests, but perhaps his calculus has changed. The Russians need these troops, which gives more leverage to the North Koreans.”
Additional reporting by Josh Cheetham in London
