"Russia intensifies its dependence on North Korea's weapons"...170mm self-propelled gun train

Forbes reported that Russia is receiving a large number of North Korean-made weapons due to a shortage of field guns and artillery shells, which intensifies its dependence on North Korea.

Forbes made the diagnosis by releasing a video that is believed to be a North Korean self-propelled gun carried on a Russian freight train.

Forbes pointed out that Russia has recently received and used additional North Korean-made M1989 "Goksan" self-propelled artillery that uses 170mm shells, which are incompatible with Russian shell standards, which are mainly 122mm or 152mm.

At the same time, North Korea has mainly supplied the caliber shells that Russia can produce on its own, but the situation is changing as the number of M1989 self-propelled artillery on the front lines increases.

There are only North Korean-made M1989 and related models in the world that use 170mm shells, and North Korea supplied them to Russia and Iran.

Forbes said there is a possibility that there may be only a factory in North Korea that makes 170mm shells.

Russian forces had about 2,000 self-propelled artillery when they began their full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, but 800 were destroyed by Ukrainian attacks and hundreds or more were reportedly difficult to deploy due to artillery damage.