The new evidence is likely to support growing US concerns about Beijing’s support for Moscow in its war of aggression against Ukraine, Reuters comments.
The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a UK defense and security think tank, says the Angara ship, which since August 2023 has carried thousands of containers of North Korean munitions to Russian ports, has been docked since February on a construction site in Zhejiang province, in eastern China.
What the satellite images show
Satellite images obtained by RUSI in recent months from companies including San Francisco-based Planet Labs PBC show the Angara ship docked at the Zhoushan Xinya shipyard in Zhejiang, which it describes on its website as the largest private ship repair company in China.
The ship was identified by its unique automatic identification (AIS) transponder, which was turned on briefly, presumably for safety reasons, as it navigated a busy section of the Korea Strait en route to China.
Before arriving in China on February 9, apparently for repairs or maintenance, the Angara docked in North Korean and Russian ports in January with its transponder turned off. It stopped broadcasting again shortly after arriving in China, RUSI notes.
At least 11 trips to Russia
The vessel, sanctioned by the US in May 2022, has made at least 11 deliveries between the North Korean port of Rajin and ports in Russia since August 2023, according to RUSI, which tracked its movements as part of a project using open source data to to monitor sanctions-violation networks imposed on North Korea.
The Chinese Embassy in the US claims that it does not know details related to Angara, but that Beijing “always opposes unilateral sanctions and long-term jurisdiction that have no basis in international law or mandate from the Security Council.” The Chinese Foreign Ministry also said it had no information on the matter.
Joseph Byrne, a researcher at RUSI, believes that Beijing should know that the Russian ship sanctioned by the US was docked in a shipyard in China. “If they let her leave port uninspected and repaired, then it shows that China probably won’t take any action against these Russian ships,” Byrne said.
Challenges for the US
A spokesman for the US State Department said it was aware of “credible reports from open sources” that the Angara ship is currently docked in a Chinese port and said the matter had been raised with authorities in Beijing.
“We call on all member states to fulfill their obligations under UN Security Council Resolution 2397,” the US official said, referring to a UN resolution that restricts trade with North Korea and requires member states to UN to deregister any ship involved in illegal activities.
The ship’s presence in the Chinese port underscores the challenges the US and its allies face in trying to strangle the military and economic support Russia has received despite its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
With Ukraine under renewed Russian assault and an ammunition crisis, US officials have issued increasingly stark warnings about Chinese aid to rebuild the Russian military after its first setbacks in the Ukraine war. . It is expected that the issue of this support will be at the top of the agenda of Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is in China this week.
Kurt Campbell, a senior US diplomat, said this month that Washington would not “stand idly by” if Beijing increased its support for Moscow.
“When Secretary Blinken meets with his counterparts in the PRC this week, he will address a number of concerns, including Russia’s war against Ukraine and ties between Russia and the DPRK,” a State Department spokesman confirmed, referring to to China and respectively North Korea by the initials of their official names.
Last week, Blinken criticized China’s support for Russia’s defense industry, saying that by supplying critical weaponry components. the Asian country is currently the main contributor to the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine.
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