The United States Calls Russia's Wagner Group Buys Weapons From North Korea For War In Ukraine

Illustration of Wagner Group soldiers. (Source: ssu.gov.ua)

JAKARTA - The White House said on Thursday that Russian private military company Wagner Group received a shipment of weapons from North Korea to help strengthen Russian troops in Ukraine.

John Kirby, a spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council, said Wagner was looking for arms suppliers around the world to support his military operations in Ukraine.

"We can confirm that North Korea has completed deliveries of initial weapons to Wagner, who paid for the equipment. Last month, North Korea sent infantry rockets and missiles to Russia for use by Wagner," he told reporters.

The Wagner group was founded in 2014 after Russia seized and annexed Ukraine's Crimean peninsula, prompting separatist insurgency in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region.

The United States estimates Wagner has 50,000 personnel deployed in Ukraine, including 10,000 contractors and 40,000 inmates recruited from Russian prisons, Kirby said.

The statement was immediately denied by Wagner owner Yevgeny Prigozhin, saying the statement was "gossip and speculation".

Prigozhin, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Kirby had a habit of making statements based on suspicion.

"Everyone knows that North Korea has not supplied any weapons to Russia for a long time. And not even such efforts have been made," he argued in a statement.

"Therefore, the supply of weapons from North Korea is only gossip and speculation," he stressed.

Washington's assessment that the amount of material sent by North Korea will not change the dynamics of the battlefield, but more military equipment is expected to be delivered by Pyongyang.

In November, after the White House said Pyongyang was secretly supplying Russia with large amounts of artillery shells, North Korea said it had never transacted weapons with Russia and had no plans to do so.

The United States has accused Pyongyang and Moscow of violating UN sanctions against North Korea, and will share its information with the UN Security Council's North Korean sanctions committee, US Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said in a statement.

President Vladimir Putin said the group did not represent Russia, but private military contractors have the right to work anywhere in the world as long as they do not violate Russian law.

Earlier, President Joe Biden's Administration on Wednesday unveiled new restrictions on technology exports to the Wagner Group. More sanctions will come in the next few weeks against companies and their support groups in countries around the world, Kirby said.

Prigozhin spent more than $100 million per month funding Wagner's operations in Ukraine, but faced problems recruiting Russians to fight there, Kirby said.

The Wagner group, managed by veterans of the Russian armed forces, has fought in Libya, Syria, the Central African Republic and Mali, among other countries.

US intelligence indicated Wagner had played a major role in fighting for the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, suffering heavy casualties there with about 1,000 Wagner fighters killed in recent weeks, Kirby said.

Within Russia, Prigozhin's influence developed, and the independence of his group from the Russian Ministry of Defense "increased during these 10 months of war," Kirby said, without providing any evidence.

Kirby said that in some cases Russian military officials in Ukraine were under Wagner forces. In addition, Prigozhin criticized the generals and Russian defense officials for their performance since the invasion.