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US sanctions target Russia–North Korea arms transfers
Summary
A look back at Washington's sanctions announcement of 16 May 2024 and Russia's Bulava missile deployment two days earlier.
What did Washington do on 16 May 2024 to curb weapons transfers between Russia and North Korea? The United States announced sanctions on two Russian individuals and three Russian companies, accusing them of facilitating those transfers.
The measure was narrow in scale: five targets in total, all Russian. It placed the focus on the intermediaries who handle the movement of weapons between Moscow and Pyongyang, rather than on the two governments themselves.
The announcement came two days after Russia, on 14 May 2024, placed its nuclear-capable submarine-launched Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile into service. The two developments were separate, but both fell within the same short period in relations between Russia and the United States.
Taken together, they show two tracks of the relationship at that moment: Russia adding to its strategic arsenal, and the United States using sanctions to target specific networks tied to Russia's military cooperation with North Korea.
