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Top Ukrainian defense officials and U.S. diplomats agree about one thing: North Korean arms deliveries to Russia are among the biggest threats to Kyiv’s ability to defeat the Russian invasion.

Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the Ukrainian chief of military intelligence, has called the nonstop ammunition shipments from North Korea to Russian ports in the Far East a direct threat to the Ukrainian front lines thousands of miles to the west. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the United Nations Security Council last month that addressing North Korean (and Iranian) arms deliveries to Russia should be the first priority for the U.N. body. And U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told lawmakers this spring that weapons from countries such as North Korea helped to keep Russia’s war going.

Top Ukrainian defense officials and U.S. diplomats agree about one thing: North Korean arms deliveries to Russia are among the biggest threats to Kyiv’s ability to defeat the Russian invasion.

Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the Ukrainian chief of military intelligence, has called the nonstop ammunition shipments from North Korea to Russian ports in the Far East a direct threat to the Ukrainian front lines thousands of miles to the west. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the United Nations Security Council last month that addressing North Korean (and Iranian) arms deliveries to Russia should be the first priority for the U.N. body. And U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told lawmakers this spring that weapons from countries such as North Korea helped to keep Russia’s war going.

The denunciations of North Korean assistance for Moscow’s war effort, which has been apparent for two years, have redoubled after the signing this summer of a rejuvenated Russia-North Korea defense pact.

There is plenty of open-source evidence suggesting that, since at least mid-2022, thousands of shipping containers have left North Korean ports, docked in Russia, and offloaded to trains headed west. U.S. State Department analysts say that at least 11,000 containers have arrived, apparently carrying munitions. Budanov has noted that the results are visible on the battlefield about a week after a new shipment arrives. While estimates of the exact number of North Korean artillery shells delivered vary widely, from 1.6 million to almost 6 million shells, experts say at least 2 million were sent to Russia as of this summer, though many of them were old, degraded, or defective in some way.

That raises a couple of questions: Why would the delivery of old and often unreliable North Korean artillery ammunition over the past year constitute one of the biggest threats to Ukraine’s chances in a war fought by advanced tanks, fighter jets, drones, and air-defense systems? And just what is North Korea getting out of this trade—merely money, food, and oil,........

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