The transfer sits inside a partnership that has been formalised since the war in Ukraine began. Russia and North Korea signed a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty in Pyongyang on 19 June 2024, whose Article 3 commits each side to provide military and other assistance by all means available if the other is put in a state of war by armed invasion - language deliberately close to the 1961 Soviet-North Korean treaty. The treaty entered into force in December 2024. For North Korea, supplying missiles and munitions provides revenue, combat feedback on weapons that have never been used in a real war, and political cover; for Russia, it supplements domestic missile production. Ukraine's Main Directorate of Intelligence, which reported this transfer, is the military intelligence arm of Ukraine's Ministry of Defence and is the usual source for such disclosures, so its claims are reported as intelligence assessments rather than confirmed inventories.