U.S. President Donald Trump accused Russia of undermining sanctions against North Korea on Wednesday, hurting U.S. efforts to further isolate the Hermit Kingdom over its nuclear missile program.
While Trump praised China for helping cut North Korea’s oil and coal supplies, he said Russia now appears to be filling in the gaps.
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“Russia is not helping us at all with North Korea,” Trump told the Reuters news agency in an interview in the Oval Office. “What China is helping us with, Russia is denting. In other words, Russia is making up for some of what China is doing.”
Trump’s outburst against Russia come amid a thawing of relations between North Korea and South Korea. The two countries recently agreed to march athletes together under a single flag in the opening ceremony of the upcoming 2018 Olympic Games in the latest sign of bonding on the Korean Peninsula.
The U.S. has tried to limit North Korea’s access to fuel, which is vital to both its struggling economy and its weapons program. Last September, Russia and China teamed up in the United Nations to block an American attempt to place a total ban on North Korea’s oil imports, although a final resolution eventually passed that significantly reduced how much oil the country is allowed to import.
Recently, reports have emerged that Russian tankers may be secretly transferring fuel supplies to North Korean ships at sea. Last June, a senior North Korean defector named Ri Jong Ho told Japan’s Kyodo News agency that North Korea secretly buys significant amounts of oil products from Russia via brokers based in Singapore.
Trump declined to comment on a recent report in the Wall Street Journal about a debate within his White House over a so-called “bloody nose” strategy, in which the U.S. might start a small conflict with North Korea in a dangerous bid to rein in Pyongyang’s nuclear program, but stop short of launching a larger war.
“We’re playing a very, very hard game of poker, and you don’t want to reveal your hand,” Trump said.
