United States imposes sanctions on two Russians and three legal entities that helped Russia obtain weapons from North Korea
On Thursday, May 16, the United States announced the imposition of sanctions against two Russian individuals and three legal entities that facilitated the supply of weapons from North Korea to Russia.
This is stated in a statement by the US Treasury Department, Censor.NET reports.
It is noted that the arms supply scheme between the Russian Federation and the DPRK is associated with a Slovakian citizen, arms dealer Ashot Mkrtichev, against whom the United States imposed sanctions last spring. However, despite the sanctions, Mkrtichev and his accomplices continued their activities through intermediaries. One of them was a Russian, Rafael Gazaryan. On behalf of Mkrtichev, he negotiated various types of weapons and ammunition for Russia from the DPRK and headed one of his companies, which is also under US sanctions.
Another Russian, Alexei Budnev, according to the US agency, facilitated the supply of military communications equipment to Russia, "which probably originated in the DPRK and was intended to support the Russian military."
Gazaryan is reportedly associated with Trans Capital and Rafort, and Budnev is the sole owner of Technologiya LLC, which was involved in military supply agreements between Moscow and Pyongyang. All of them are now under US sanctions.
In his turn, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement on social media platform X that the United States is concerned about relations between Russia and the DPRK.
"The deepening of relations between the DPRK and Russia poses a major threat to global security and the international nonproliferation regime," the US State Department spokesman said.
Earlier, South Korean intelligence reported that Russia was using DPRK weapons manufactured in the 1970s against Ukraine. South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won Sik said that the DPRK sent about 6,700 containers to Russia after the summit of the two leaders in September, which is enough to accommodate about 3 million 152-mm artillery shells or 500,000 122-mm artillery shells.
