WASHINGTON: North Korea has supplied Russia with ballistic missiles and missile launchers that were used in recent attacks on Ukraine, the White House said on Thursday.

“This is a significant and concerning escalation,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters in a briefing. Recently declassified intelligence found that North Korea has provided Russia with ballistic missile launchers and several ballistic missiles, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said. Russian forces fired at least one of those ballistic missiles into Ukraine on Dec 30 and it landed in an open field in the Zaporizhzhia region, he said.

Experts examine a crater next to a multi-storey residential building destroyed by a missile attack in central Kyiv, on January 2, 2024. — AFP

Kirby said a Russia-Iran deal had not been completed, but that the US “is concerned that Russia’s negotiations to acquire close-range ballistic missiles from Iran are actively advancing.” The Biden administration has repeatedly sought to make the case that the Kremlin has become reliant on North Korea, as well as Iran, for the arms it needs to fight its war against Ukraine and has disclosed intelligence findings that it says show as much.

North Korea and Iran are largely isolated on the international stage for their nuclear programs and human rights records. The White House in October said that North Korea delivered more than 1,000 containers of military equipment and munitions to Russia.

Relations between Russia and North Korea go back to the 1948 foundation of North Korea. Soviet officials installed a young and ambitious nationalist, Kim Il Sung, the late grandfather of current leader Kim Jong Un, as the country’s first ruler.