According to the White House, North Korea has supplied weapons to the Russian mercenary group Wagner. The shipment last month included grenades and rockets, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters today. This is a violation of UN Security Council resolutions. The US assumed that North Korea was “considering supplying additional equipment”.
Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin dismissed US claims that the company had received a shipment of arms from North Korea as “gossip and speculation”: “Everyone knows that North Korea has long stopped supplying arms to Russia. Nor have any such efforts been made.”
10,000 mercenaries in Ukraine
The Wagner mercenary group is active in several theaters of war around the world and also fights alongside Russia in Ukraine. Kirby estimates that the group currently has around 50,000 people stationed in Ukraine. Of these, 10,000 are mercenaries and 40,000 are recruits from Russian prisons.
Washington will take further action against the group “over the next few weeks,” Kirby said. The US has already imposed sanctions on the organization.
According to Kirby, the United States assumes that the mercenary group will increasingly compete with the Russian army and various ministries in the future. For months, the Russian army has relied on the Wagner group to fight in certain areas of Donbas in eastern Ukraine. “In some cases, Russian officers are actually subject to Wagner’s orders.”
Russia’s shadow army
The mercenary group led by its boss Prigozhin spends more than 100 million US dollars (more than 94 million euros) every month on their operations in Ukraine, Kirby said. However, the troops are “poorly equipped and badly trained”. They also suffered heavy casualties on the battlefield.
The Wagner group of mercenaries is considered Russia’s “shadow army”. In addition to Ukraine, their fighters are also deployed in the Central African Republic. The mercenaries are accused of serious human rights abuses, including torture and targeted killings.