On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is due to arrive in North Korea for meetings noticed as putting the stage for a visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has stepped up cooperation with politically isolated North Korea.
The two-day visit of Lavrov comes a month after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made a rare trip to Russia, during which he invited Putin to Pyongyang and discussed military cooperation, including over North Korean satellite program and the battle in Ukraine.
Russian TASS news agency reported that Lavrov may report to the North Koreans on the consequences of Putin’s visit to China, as well as discuss the standing invitation to visit Pyongyang.
Sung Kim, U.S. Special Representative for North Korea, on Tuesday called ties between North Korea and Russia “worrying,” after the White House said last week Pyongyang recently delivered Russia with weapons.
A growing number of reports by the U.S. government and Western researchers have documented with satellite imagery what they say are North Korean weapons shipments to Russia for use in the battle in Ukraine.
TASS reported that Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin spokesman, said on Tuesday that the Western allegations were not based on evidence.
The U.K.-based Royal United Services Institute released on Monday dozens of high-resolution commercial satellite photos that it said showed two Russian ships with connections to the nation’s military logistics networks creating numerous trips to North Korea.
The RUSI report said that the two ships had moved several hundred containers to and from a port in North Korea since August.
Although admitting it was impossible to confirm their contents, the report said containers of the same size and color were later seen being delivered to a recently extended Russian munitions storage facility near the border with Ukraine.
North Korea is heavily sanctioned over its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, and United Nations Security Council resolutions – approved at the time with Russia’s support – ban cooperation with Pyongyang on military issues as well as in a range of other areas.
