The act of war

The UN Security Council has voted in favor of imposing new sanctions on North Korea in the aftermath of the continued ballistic missiles' tests by this country despite international community's repeated warnings. The text of the resolution was proposed by the USA.

According to the document, the supplies of oil products into the DPRK in 2018 will be limited down to 500 thousand barrels, which is by 90% less than Pyongyang imported in 2016.

Meanwhile, North Korea has been living "under sanctions" for over a decade already. During the previous two years only the UN has restrained export of the North Korean coal to China by 60% and banned export of copper, nickel, silver, and zinc. It has also terminated international trips and froze assets of four companies and 14 citizens of North Korea including the head of the DPRK intelligence. The UN has also introduced constrains on investing the North Korean economy. These sanctions have already cost Pyongyang as much as one billion dollars. Under the new sanctions, export of labor force from North Korea is also banned and this is what will have its negative effect on Russia where quite a great number of North Korean migrants are working at the present time. Now they are to go back home during the nearest 24 months.

It's worth nothing, that the authorities of North Korea tend to send abroad mainly skilled workers, mostly engaged in building trade, so that to ensure foreign currency inflow into the country. After the introduction of international sanctions currency supply from other countries had drastically dropped. Up till now, the restrictions of the UN haven't involved this source of revenue of the North Korean government. Apart from Russia, thousands of labor migrants from North Korea are working on construction sites of China, Mongolia, and the Middle East.

North Korea qualified the latest UN Security Council sanctions imposed on Pyongyang as an act of war. In the statement of the DPRK foreign ministry these sanctions are called "complete economic blockade" that will be followed by "a thousand fold" retaliation, in particular, by further development of the nuclear program and ICBM launches.

Taking into consideration the sanctions' experience already available with the UN, there is every ground to believe that new sanctions will turn out to be ineffective, just like all the previous ones were. And, taking into account the achievements of Pyongyang in advancing of its national nuclear-missile program, which were proved by international experts, those sanctions may happen to be counterproductive as a matter of fact. Thus, Pyongyang has already responded to sanctions by successful tests of "the most powerful ICBM able to carry super-large heavy nuclear warhead" and of "H-bomb compacted enough to be loaded into ICBM". Shall we stay waiting for more victorious reports?