US ready to impose new sanctions if Moscow and Pyongyang agree on arms supplies

The United States is ready to impose new sanctions if Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) leader Kim Jong-un agree on the supply of ammunition from Pyongyang at a meeting to be held in the Russian Far East region, said US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller.

"I will remind both countries that any transfer of arms from North Korea to Russia would be in violation of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions. And we of course have aggressively enforced our sanctions against entities that fund Russia’s war effort, and we will continue to enforce those sanctions and will not hesitate to impose new sanctions if appropriate," he told a briefing.

"I think it’s important to put it in overall context, which is a year and a half ago President Putin launched this war against Ukraine with its full-scale aggression with a dream of restoring the glory of the Russian empire. That hope, that expectation of his, has failed. It will continue to fail. And I think there’s no better evidence of that than now, a year and a half later, not only has he failed to achieve his goals on the battlefield, but you see him traveling across his own country hat in hand to beg Kim Jong-un for military assistance. And the fact that it comes just after the G20 this weekend, where President Biden was there meeting with his fellow counterparts, leaders of major countries in the world, and President Putin was nowhere to be found, I think largely because of his own international pariah status that he has foisted upon himself through his actions," Miller said.