Kyrylo Budanov also said that among Moscow’s allies, North Korea was the biggest threat to kyiv.
Among Moscow’s allies, North Korea represents “the biggest problem” for kyiv because of massive deliveries of artillery shells to Russia, which is using them on the front lines in Ukraine, Ukrainian military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov said on Saturday.
“Of all these allies of Russia, our biggest problem comes from North Korea, because with the volume of military products that it supplies, it really affects the intensity of the fighting.”he said at a Yalta European Strategy conference in kyiv. North Korean authorities “provide huge volumes of artillery ammunition (…) it is critical for us”said the influential General Budanov. “Unfortunately, (…) we can’t do anything about it at the moment”he admitted.
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“The fact that they also supply ballistic missiles is unpleasant, but” less serious because of their smaller quantity, General Budanov assured. The United States and South Korea have accused Pyongyang of providing munitions and missiles to Russia to support its invasion of Ukraine, which has been ongoing since February 2022.
Russia’s “considerable” progress
Pyongyang rejects the accusations, but the investigative group Conflict Armament Research said this week that debris analyses show that “Missiles produced this year in North Korea are being used in Ukraine”.
Kyrylo Budanov also claimed that Russia had “made considerable progress” in the production of Iskander ballistic missiles and multiplied “several times” the number of gliding aerial bombs, weapons that the Russian military uses to strike civilian and military targets in Ukraine.
“We are now clearly seeing the massive use of Iskander-M missiles” across Ukraine, while “Guided bombs pose a huge problem on the front line” where they are launched against Ukrainian troops, he said.
End of the war “before 2026”
The general nevertheless believed that Russia, currently on the offensive on the front in Ukraine, would try to end the war. «avant 2026» to avoid seeing its positions weakened due to the accumulation of economic problems caused in particular by Western sanctions and those of mobilization against a backdrop of significant losses on the front.
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Kyrylo Budanov, whose department is renowned for daring operations deep inside Russia, brushed aside Western fears of an escalation in Europe’s worst armed conflict since World War II. “All these dilemmas: will there be an escalation or not? What escalation? (…) There won’t be one.”he said, calling on Westerners to “don’t be afraid” to better arm Ukraine.
Exhausted by two and a half years of war, the Ukrainians will continue to fight, the military assured. “We are fighting for our land and we have no other choice. We cannot say: ‘I’m tired, that’s all, I’m leaving (…). This is our strong point'”he said.
