Finland's defence chief sees Russia unlikely to attack NATO

Finland's new armed forces chief said Russia was unlikely to test NATO's mutual defence clause by attacking a NATO member state in the coming years, but may well continue what he said were hybrid attacks such as jamming and election interference.

Some Western leaders, such as U.S. President Joe Biden, Germany's top military official and Denmark's defence minister, have expressed concern that Russia's longer term plans could include an attack against NATO.

"Of course testing the Article 5 is always possible, but if we take correct action and maintain unity, I consider an attack unlikely," General Janne Jaakkola said told Reuters.

Jaakkola, whose job is to closely watch what Russia does behind the long border it shares with Finland, said right now Moscow was too busy preparing for its new summer offensive in Ukraine to consider an attack against NATO.

At the end of last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin himself dismissed the idea of attacking NATO as nonsense but the Kremlin has also warned that a conflict between Russia and NATO would be inevitable if European members of NATO sent troops to fight in Ukraine.

However, Jaakkola said Russia was likely to continue what he described as hybrid attacks against European countries, in the form of GPS jamming, influence operations and by targeting its neighbours including Finland with migrants.

The Kremlin routinely denies meddling in elections and weaponising migration. It did not respond to a request for comment about allegations of jamming by Estonia last month but has previously denied attempting to develop jamming technology.

"The point for the Russians is that they wish to cause as much division in Europe as possible, so that our unity and cohesion is a bit weaker," Jaakkola said.

Jaakkola nomination to lead the Nordic country's defence from April 1 marked the first anniversary of Finland's membership in the Western military alliance, which it joined in response to Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

As well as joining NATO, Finland has increased its defence spending, amounting to 2.5% of gross domestic product in 2023 and 2.31% this year, renewed its fighter jet fleet, signed a bilateral defence cooperation agreement with the U.S., and is doubling its ammunition production capacity by 2027.

"The direction of our defence and therefore deterrence is upwards," he said.

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Russia calls claim about its alleged military ties with North Korea inaccurate

State flags of Russia and North Korea fly in a street in Vladivostok

 Russia said on Thursday that Western claims that it was cooperating militarily with North Korea were inaccurate and said its relationship with Pyongyang was neither directed against third countries nor threatening to the security of the region.

Reuters on April 25 reported from Washington that China was providing moorage for a U.S.-sanctioned Russian cargo ship implicated in North Korean arms transfers to Russia, according to satellite images obtained by Reuters from Britain's Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).

The ship had conducted at least 11 deliveries between the North Korean port of Rajin and Russian ports from August 2023, according to RUSI, which has been tracking its movements as part of a project to use open source data to monitor North Korea's sanctions evasion networks.

In response to a request for comment on the story, Russia's Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that "the accusations against Moscow and Pyongyang in military cooperation are unfounded and unsubstantiated."

"As for the British analytical center RUSI, we do not consider ourselves obliged to report to anyone for inaccurate information disseminated by such structures, which no one authorised or endowed with supervisory functions to monitor compliance with the international sanctions regime."

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Moscow, the ministry said, was building relations with North Korea on the basis of mutual interests.

"This cooperation is not directed against third countries and does not threaten security in the region and the world as a whole," the foreign ministry said.

"At the same time, our country, being a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, pays increased attention to the problems of peace and security in the Korean Peninsula and the implementation of U.N. Security Council decisions that would help reduce the level of threats."

Russia shipping fuel to North Korea above UN cap - White House

Russia has been quietly shipping refined petroleum to North Korea at levels that appear to violate a cap imposed by the United Nations Security Council, the White House said on Thursday, with new sanctions to come soon in response.

The disclosure came on the first day after a U.N. panel of experts monitoring enforcement of longstanding U.N. sanctions against North Korea for its nuclear weapons and missile programs was disbanded after a Russian veto.

"At the same time that Moscow vetoed the panel's mandate renewal, Russia has been shipping refined petroleum from Port Vostochny to the DPRK (North Korea)," White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters.

Under U.N. sanctions, Pyongyang is limited to importing 500,000 barrels of refined products a year. The Russian and North Korean U.N. missions in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the U.S. accusation.

Kirby said that in March alone, Russia shipped more than 165,000 barrels of refined petroleum to North Korea and that given the close proximity of Russian and North Korean commercial ports, Russia could sustain these shipments indefinitely.

Russia blocked the annual renewal of the U.N. sanctions monitors in late March in what a U.S. official described as a calculated move by Moscow to hide its own violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Kirby said the United States will continue to impose sanctions "against those working to facilitate arms and refined petroleum transfers between Russia and the DPRK." North Korea is formally known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

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"We have previously worked to coordinate autonomous sanctions designations with our partners — including Australia, the European Union, Japan, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, and the United Kingdom — and we will continue to do so," he said.

State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said the United States and its allies are working to announce "new coordinated sanctions designations this month."

The U.S. and South Korea in March launched a task force aimed at preventing North Korea from procuring illicit oil.

The U.S. and others have also accused North Korea of transferring weapons to Russia for use against Ukraine, which it invaded in February 2022. Both Moscow and Pyongyang deny the accusations, but vowed last year to deepen military relations.

The debris from a missile that landed in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Jan. 2 was from a North Korean Hwasong-11 series ballistic missile, U.N. sanctions monitors told a Security Council committee in a report seen by Reuters on Monday.