Putin’s desperate need for artillery shells is driving him into a Faustian pact with North Korea

Though it is a truism, when supplies run dry, war becomes arduous. Russia’s war with Ukraine is no exception. Without heavy artillery shells, there can be no artillery fire – what Joseph Stalin infamously termed the “God of War”. Without rockets and anti-tank missiles, Russia cannot take aim at Western-supplied tanks to Ukraine. With the pariah state having few global friends, Putin knew that Moscow did have one partner-in-crime, a state equally intent on inflicting belligerence to the West, and