The purchase suggests the Russian military continues to suffer from severe supply shortages in Ukraine, in part due to export controls and sanctions, the official said.
The US expects that Russia may try to buy more military equipment from North Korea in the future, the official added.
The New York Times first reported on the purchase. The two countries had developed ties during the Korean War in the 1950s, with the former Soviet Union being a major benefactor to North Korea and providing financial support to the regime. North Korea blames the US and the West for the war in Ukraine. The news that Moscow is buying weapons from North Korea follows a recent US assessment that Russia now possesses weaponized drones from Iran, which are also likely to be used in the war in Ukraine.
The US believes that Moscow has officially purchased the Mohajer-6 and Shahed series drones – the Shahed-129 and Shahed-191 – from Iran and transferred them to Russia for use in the war in Ukraine. The drones are capable of carrying precision-guided munitions and can be used for surveillance.
Russia has sought to impede the Ukrainian military’s use of recently Western-supplied long-range precision artillery and missile systems, including the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), on the battlefield. With the HIMARS, Ukraine was able to precisely target and hit Russian command posts, logistic hubs and ammunition depots far beyond the front lines.
Defense Department spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters during a briefing at the Pentagon Tuesday that Russia had reached out to North Korea to “request ammunition.”
Russia’s request to North Korea is “indicative of the situation Russia is in,” Ryder said.
“It demonstrates and shows the situation that Russia is in in terms of logistics and conservation capabilities in relation to Ukraine,” Ryder said. “We understand that things are not going well for Russia on that front, so the fact that they are turning to North Korea is a sign that they have some challenges on the sustainability front.”
A sign that Russia may struggle to maintain supplies for the war in Ukraine
Ammunition availability will prove to be one of the most critical factors in Russia’s ability to sustain its war in Ukraine, US officials told CNN. Estimating Russia’s wartime ammunition stocks has been difficult, sources said, but buying supplies from North Korea may indicate some Russian supplies are running low. US intelligence officials also believe the Russians are running out of artillery shells and rockets amid their scorched-earth tactics of unleashing artillery fire on Ukrainian cities over the past six months.
For now, however, the ammunition shortage doesn’t appear to be particularly widespread, officials said. But it could be particularly acute for select types of high-caliber multiple-launch missile systems, low-caliber artillery systems and precision-guided weapons, said Michael Kofman, director of the Russia studies program at the Center for Naval Analyzes. Kofman added that it will take time for Russia to ramp up production in a meaningful way to meet high wartime ammunition spending, which the Russian defense industry clearly did not anticipate.
In another signal that Moscow may be struggling to maintain the resources it needs to support its six-month war, Russia has reallocated both manpower and equipment from far-flung military districts in both the east and north, according to two sources trusted by US and western intelligence agencies.
And Russia earlier this year restricted public access to information about its budget, including import and export figures. According to one such source, this blackout is a key indicator that Russia has been forced to aggressively divert funds and other resources to the conflict — a fact it wishes to hide from the public. The Kremlin continues to insist that it is not waging a war, but only a limited “military special operation”.
CNN’s Ellie Kaufman and Veronica Stracqualursi contributed to this report.