Kim Jong-un profits from the war in Ukraine: 20 billion dollars for his support to Moscow

War damages as much as it enriches, history proves it once again today.

With the war in Ukraine, it's North Korea that, according to the Korean Institute of Defense Analysis (KIDA), is getting rich from its support to the Kremlin's armed forces and, more broadly, to Russia.

According to information from KIDA, Kim Jong-un has amassed $20 billion (nearly €18 billion) since he began helping Moscow. "The KIDA report indicates that the vast majority of North Korea's economic benefits come from supplying munitions to Russia, but it has also benefited from sending thousands of soldiers to fight Ukraine and offering technical support," reports Newsweek.

Quid pro quo

In exchange for a "natural and technical assistance" from Russia, which could allow Pyongyang to obtain "even more high-tech weapons," North Korea is said to have delivered 15,800 containers of munitions to the Russians between August 2023 and March 2025, totalling 5 million individual munitions. Furthermore, Moscow might in turn intervene in North Korean territory if a conflict were to arise.

And since everything has a price, for Pyongyang, "the military losses have been heavy (in Ukraine), and it's estimated that about 4,000 soldiers out of the 11,000 sent by North Korea have perished," reports Newsweek.

(MH with Manon Pierre - Source: L’Indépendant - Illustration: ©Unsplash)