Russian businessman and founder of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has denied the US accusation of receiving weapons from North Korea, considered as «speculation», to use them in the war against Ukraine.
«Unfortunately, Mr. Kirby makes quite a few statements based on conjecture. Everyone knows that North Korea has not been supplying weapons to the Russian Federation for a long time,» said the Russian oligarch, who classified the accusations as «hearsay and speculation.»
According to the Tass news agency, the Wagner group is supplied with US weapons, so its lawyers will actively try to remove Washington’s sanctions on the supply of weapons to private military companies.
Similarly, a spokesman for the North Korean Foreign Ministry has pointed out that Pyongyang has never had arms transactions with Moscow within the framework of the war in Ukraine.
«The Japanese media’s false report that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) offered ammunition to Russia is the most absurd red herring, which does not deserve any comment or interpretation,» the spokesman said, as reported by the North Korean news agency KCNA.
This comes after the United States, through National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, had denounced Wagner’s arms purchase from North Korea at a press conference.
Kirby specified that Wagner «has been forced to rely on pariah states to sustain its military campaign in Ukraine» and assured that Washington is planning new actions against the Russian group, although he did not give further details.
For his part, the representative of the UN Secretary General, Stéphane Dujarric, affirmed on Thursday that he was not aware of the U.S. denunciation and had no information on the transfer of arms from North Korea to the Russian group.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
