North Korea may be transferring the cargo through other nations, according to the US.
A “substantial number” of artillery shells were allegedly secretly shipped by North Korea to Russia in support of that country’s invasion of Ukraine, according to the White House on Wednesday.
The United States believes North Korea is “trying to make it appear as though they are being shipped to countries in the Middle East or North Africa,” according to National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby. He refused to give an exact figure for the amount of ammunition being sent to support the Russian endeavour.
The ammo is being “covertly supplied” from North Korea to Russia, according to Kirby, but “we’re still monitoring this to see if the shipments are actually received.”
Citing Western attempts to support the Ukrainian military, Kirby emphasised that the North Korean supplies “would not affect the direction of the battle.”
The White House refused to say how the cargo to Russia would be transported or whether the United States or other countries would make an attempt to stop them.
Ukraine is in disarray, New Deaths has been reported
Thousands of households in the Kyiv area and elsewhere in Ukraine were still without electricity on Wednesday, according to authorities, as Russian drone and artillery assaults continued to target Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
Oleksiy Kukeba, the governor of the Kyiv area, reported that 16,000 houses were without electricity and that power disruptions were caused by drone attacks on energy infrastructure in the Cherkasy region, south of the capital.
Although Kyiv’s water and electricity had been restored, Kuleba didn’t rule out “weeks” of electricity shortages should Russian forces continue to target the city’s energy facilities. He said that Russian soldiers were attempting to provoke a severe humanitarian situation in a Telegram post.
According to Dnipropetrovsk Governor Valentyn Reznichenko, power disruptions were also recorded in the southern cities of Nikopol and Chervonohryhorivka as a result of “a large-scale drone strike.”
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, which is the biggest nuclear facility in Europe, is situated between the two cities across the Dnipro River. The bombardment at and near the facility that the UN’s nuclear watchdog warned may result in a radiation disaster has been blamed on Russia and Ukraine for months.
According to the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, ongoing Russian bombardment throughout nine districts in southern and eastern Ukraine resulted in at least four civilian deaths and 17 additional injuries between Tuesday and Wednesday.
Seven individuals were injured by the bombardment that also blasted villages and cities in the northeastern Kharkiv area that Ukraine retook last month.
A hospital and residential complexes in Toretsk, a city in the Donetsk area, were devastated by a Russian fire. Russian and Ukrainian forces are still battling for control of the cities of Avdiivka and Bakhmut, which are both important targets of a Russian attack in the area, according to Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko on Wednesday.
In preparation of a significant Ukrainian onslaught to retake the same-named provincial capital in southern Ukraine, Russian-installed authorities in the seized Kherson area evacuated inhabitants 90 kilometres deeper into Russian-held territory.
The accord that allowed Ukrainian grain and other goods to enter international markets was saved through diplomatic efforts after Russia announced on Wednesday that it would uphold the pact. Over the weekend, Russia threatened to renege on the agreement, claiming claims that a Ukrainian drone had attacked its Black Sea fleet in Crimea. The incident, which some Ukrainian officials claimed was the result of Russian forces using their own weapons improperly, was not claimed by Ukraine.
In order to guarantee that grain and other supplies from the Black Sea region would reach Africa, the Middle East, and portions of Asia during Russia’s now eight-month-old conflict in Ukraine, the UN and Turkey negotiated separate agreements with Russia and Ukraine in July.
Russia and Ukraine are important international exporters of food to emerging nations, where many people are already suffering from hunger, including wheat, barley, sunflower oil, and other products. Prior to the grain deal, the loss of such supplies contributed to rising food prices, tens of millions of people falling into poverty, and rising energy prices.
According to the UN, the grain pact reduced global food prices by 15% from their March peak.