North Korea’s Foreign Ministry denied media reports that it had supplied Russia with ammunition as “baseless” and denounced the United States for supplying lethal weapons to Ukraine, North Korea’s official KCNA news agency reported on Friday.
Japan’s Tokyo Shimbun newspaper previously reported that North Korea had sent munitions, including artillery shells, to Russia by train across its border last month and that additional shipments were expected in the coming weeks.
“The false Japanese media report that the DPRK offered munitions to Russia is a totally absurd red herring, it does not deserve any comment or interpretation,” a ministry spokesman said in a statement carried by KCNA.
The White House said Thursday that the North has completed an initial arms delivery to a private Russian military company, the Wagner Group, to help bolster the Russian military in Ukraine.
The North Korean Foreign Ministry statement did not mention Wagner.
According to the White House, Wagner received infantry rockets and missiles from North Korea, though Wagner’s owner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, denied the claim, calling it “gossip and speculation.”
