A photo circulating on social media shows North Korean artillery pieces that have been shipped to Russia as Pyongyang continues to support Moscow’s war against Ukraine.
A Russian Telegram channel published the photo on Thursday, showing two guns being transported by rail. They have been identified as North Korean M1989 Koksan 170 mm self-propelled howitzers.
According to specialist outlet The War Zone, the M1989 can store 12 shell rounds and has a range of between 25 to 37 miles.
The photo caption reads: “We have an ally who fulfills agreements, for which we are very grateful.”
Russia and North Korea ratified a defense treaty recently, which mandates them to deploy available military resources to assist if either side is attacked.
Newsweek has reached out to both the foreign and defense ministries in Moscow, as well as the North Korean Embassy in Beijing for comment via email.
Ukraine and its Western partners have accused North Korea of deploying soldiers to join Moscow’s so-called special military operation in Ukraine. The U.S. says over 10,000 North Korean troops have been sent to Russia and have begun engaging in combat operations.
Besides artillery and manpower support, North Korea has provided other weapons to Moscow. Ukraine claimed in September that it had destroyed “significant stocks” of North Korean ballistic missiles during a large-scale drone strike on a Russian military depot.
Status-6, a social media account that covers military and conflict news, claimed that the photo was taken in Krasnoyarsk, a city in central Russia. It is also one of the stops of the Trans-Siberian Railway, which connects European Russia to the Russian Far East.
It was not immediately clear when the photo was taken and whether the guns have been used on the battlefield by either the Russian military or North Korean forces.
The RBC-Ukraine news agency reported in October that Russian soldiers have started training on North Korean self-propelled artillery systems, which indicated that Russia could not independently produce and repair its own heavy weapons in the required quantities.
“Since 2022, Russian propagandists have been speculating that North Korea might supply [M1989 Koksans to Russia] as a supplement to their large-caliber systems like the Pion self-propelled cannon and Tyulpan self-propelled heavy mortar,” Ukraine’s Defense Express said in a report.
Although the M1989 has a long-range strike capability, The War Zone says its rate of fire is “incredibly slow” as it can only fire two rounds every five minutes. A German-made self-propelled howitzer in service with Ukrainian forces can fire 10 rounds per minute.
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