WASHINGTON, Sept 19 (Askume) – The United States on Thursday sanctioned a network of five groups and one individual that allowed payments between Russia and North Korea to support Moscow’s war in Ukraine .
“Today’s actions hold accountable those parties that facilitate sanctions evasion by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and Russia,” the US Treasury Department said in a statement.
The measures also reflect the United States’ commitment to disrupt “the networks that help finance North Korea’s illicit weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and ballistic missile programs and Russia’s activities against Ukraine,” the report said.
“Growing financial cooperation between Russia and (North Korea) directly threatens international security and the global financial system,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.
“Russia is becoming increasingly dependent on North Korea as it faces mounting battlefield defeats and growing international isolation.”
The US Treasury Department said the new sanctions reveal how Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government used illicit financial schemes to help North Korea gain access to the international banking system in violation of UN Security Council sanctions.
The US action comes days after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met Russia’s top security official Sergei Shoigu and discussed deepening strategic dialogue between the two countries, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported on Saturday.
American and Ukrainian and independent analysts say Kim is helping Russia by providing rockets and missiles in exchange for economic and other military aid from Moscow.
The sanctions target the financial schemes of North Korea’s state-owned Foreign Trade Bank (FTB) and South Korea’s Kwangsan Bank, both of which have previously been sanctioned by the United States.
MRB Bank, based in Georgia’s South Ossetia region, reportedly established a secret banking relationship with North Korea’s VTB on behalf of a specific Russian bank under a program run by Russia’s central bank.
Another scheme involved Rosfinance Bank AG, already subject to U.S. sanctions, working with FTB to set up a Moscow-based company that would handle deposits from closed Russian banks and receive North Korean frozen funds, the Treasury said.
