Russia shipped more than 165,000 barrels of refined petroleum to North Korea in March in defiance of U.N. sanctions as the two countries have been forging closer relations, a senior White House official said Thursday.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Russian shipments have already topped North Korea's annual import cap mandated by the U.N. Security Council.
North Korea is banned from importing more than 500,000 barrels of refined petroleum products a year under U.N. sanctions, approved in 2017 over Pyongyang's nuclear and ballistic missile tests.
"Given the close proximity of Russian and North Korean commercial ports, Russia could sustain these shipments indefinitely," Kirby told reporters.
Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine started in 2022, Moscow and Pyongyang have been deepening military and other types of cooperation. Officials have said that North Korean ballistic missiles were used by Russia in its war against Ukraine.
The United States is now coordinating with its partners, including Australia, Britain, Japan, South Korea and the European Union, to announce this month new sanctions against North Korea, according to State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.
U.S. disclosure of the fuel shipments came after a long-standing U.N. panel of independent experts tasked with monitoring the enforcement of sanctions on North Korea was disbanded this week because of a Russian veto blocking its reauthorization.
Kirby deplored Tuesday's breaking up of the panel, established in 2009, and said that "this was a calculated move on Russia's part to hide its own violations of Security Council resolutions."
