North Korea has reportedly imported two-dozen horses of a breed favored by Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un.
The five mares and 19 stallions were transported by two rail cars through the border town of Khasan on Sunday, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency cited Russia's agricultural safety watchdog, Rosselkhoznadzor, as saying. Its office in the Primorsky region said that each of the imported horses was microchipped and underwent quarantine before being exported.
Orlov Trotters are Russia's most-celebrated breed, known for their speed and endurance and ridden by 19th-century aristocracy.
The North Korean embassy in China and Rosselkhoznadzor did not immediately respond to a written request for comment.
It is not the first time the Kim regime has taken delivery of the Orlov Trotters, having received 30 in 2022, the year Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine. The delivery happened amid U.S. allegations of North Korean arms transfers to its northern neighbor.
Russia gifted Kim's father and predecessor, Kim Jong Il, with the thoroughbreds 19 years prior.
Kim Jong Un is also known for his appetite for high-end vehicles, such as the Aurus Senat limousine that Russia gifted him earlier this year. The Russian-made model serves as Putin's presidential car, and Kim praised it during his last visit to the Russia in September.
In December, a police raid in the Japanese city of Chiba thwarted an attempt to smuggle a $70,000 Lexus into North Korea via Bangladesh.
Supplying the North Koreans with luxury goods is banned under United Nations Security Council sanctions due to the country's missile and nuclear weapons programs—sanctions Russia voted for.
Other sanctioned activities include prohibitions on the transfer of coal, iron, and lead; a 500,000-barrel cap on oil; and bans on employing North Korean workers overseas to curb remittances being sent to the communist regime.
Pyongyang has been deepening its ties with an increasingly isolated Moscow since the start of the Ukraine invasion.
Washington and Seoul believe the Kim regime has been supplying its partner with millions of artillery rounds and an unknown number of missiles to replenish the stocks of Russian forces in Ukraine. South Korean intelligence said this week that it has so far monitored over 13,000 shipping containers suspected of carrying out arms transfers.
In June, Putin and Kim signed an agreement pledging military assistance in the event either country is attacked.
On the diplomatic front, earlier this year Russia used its veto as a permanent member of the Security Council to end the mandate of a panel of experts to monitor North Korea sanctions.
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