The United States today sanctioned a network of five groups and one person for facilitating payments between Russia and North Korea related to support for Moscow’s war in Ukraine and Pyongyang’s weapons programs, the Treasury Department said.

“Today’s action holds accountable the parties that helped the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea (DPRK) and Russia evade sanctions,” the finance ministry said in a statement.

The measures also show the US commitment to dismantle networks “that facilitate the financing of the DPRK’s illicit weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and ballistic missile programs and support Russia’s illegal war against Ukraine,” the statement said.

“Increasing economic cooperation” between Russia and North Korea “directly threatens international security and the global financial system,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.

“Russia is increasingly dependent on the DPRK as it faces mounting battlefield losses and growing international isolation.”

The new sanctions reveal how the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin is using illegal financial schemes to help North Korea gain access to the international banking system, in violation of UN Security Council sanctions, the Treasury Department says.

The US action comes days after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met with Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu to discuss deepening strategic dialogue between the two countries, according to a report on Saturday by the state-run KCNA news agency. of North Korea.

The United States and Ukraine, as well as independent analysts, say Kim is helping Russia by supplying missiles, in exchange for financial and other military aid from Moscow.

The sanctions target financial schemes of North Korea’s state-run Foreign Trade Bank (FTB) and Korea Kwangson Banking Corporation, which had already been sanctioned by the US.

A scheme orchestrated by Russia’s Central Bank had MRB Bank, which is based in Georgia’s South Ossetia region, act on behalf of a Russian bank to establish a secret banking relationship with North Korea’s Foreign Trade Bank, it says the Ministry of Finance.

A separate scheme involved Russian Financial Corporation Bank JSC, which is also already subject to US sanctions, working with the FTB to create a Moscow-based company that would receive frozen North Korean funds held in decommissioned Russian banks , the Ministry of Finance states in its announcement.