This is reported by Defense Express.
Russian Defense Minister Shoigu arrived in the DPRK, officially to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the armistice in the Korean War, which was signed on July 27, 1953. The visit itself, despite the formal occasion, lasts three days from July 25 to 27. The culmination of the visit is Shoigu's participation in the traditionally large-scale parade.
Given that there have been few official visits by Russian representatives to Pyongyang in general, with Putin visiting the DPRK capital only once in 2000 and Shoigu never, this trip can indeed be considered a rather significant event.
And the main questions remain why Shoigu went to the DPRK and what he brought back. After all, this country remains one of the few for the Kremlin that actively supports Russian aggression and was caught supplying weapons to Russia.
At the same time, the DPRK itself is making quite significant progress in missile technology, for example, Pyongyang is extremely active and apparently quite successful in testing a new intercontinental missile, the Hwasong-17, which was created in a very short time. And back in the Soviet era, the Kremlin helped the Korean nuclear program.
The DPRK receives from Russia not only military technology, including ready-made solutions, but also much greater economic support, for example, in 2014 Moscow forgave Pyongyang 90% of all its debts, and supplies grain, oil, and other goods to North Korea.
"But what is most important now is what exactly the Kremlin wants to get for its "investment" and why Shoigu's long visit to Pyongyang was necessary. And it is possible to put Russia's need for armaments in the first place, and the country has already closed a certain area of this. We are talking about ammunition, because the DPRK has a huge artillery arsenal, as the country's armed forces have more than 21,600 artillery systems of 122-, 152-, and 170-mm caliber and another 5,500 MLRS, most of them of 122-mm caliber, which is standard for Grad," the company said.
This number of artillery systems means a corresponding amount of ammunition. And the DPRK has already sold about 250,000 rounds of ammunition. And the sale of such a quantity at an estimated price of 1,000 dollars amounted to as much as 1% of GDP for the country. But Pyongyang has more shells, although there are questions about their quality and shelf life, as the main creation of stockpiles took place during the Soviet era.
But it is unlikely that expanding the sale of ammunition would require a visit by Shoigu, especially since their sale is extremely profitable for the DPRK. But the transfer of ready-made weapons is more like the reason for a rather lengthy visit, which is necessary to demonstrate the goods to the buyer.
And in a situation where, thanks to the successful actions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the number of artillery systems of the enemy is decreasing at an extremely rapid pace, for example, since the beginning of summer, according to the General Staff, 583 artillery units have been destroyed, this issue is also more than important for the Kremlin.
We also need to take into account the natural "shootout" of the barrels themselves, which also affects the number of combat-ready artillery systems in Russia. That is why Shoigu's visit may well be aimed at obtaining not only shells, but also the artillery systems themselves, the transfer of which will be extremely difficult to disguise, unlike ammunition.
It is quite possible that Russia is interested not only in artillery, but also in all other types of ground forces weapons. But the Kremlin may well pay for this with even more help in creating missiles, nuclear weapons, transferring ready-made technologies in general, oil and grain.