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(NEW YORK) — With few trade partners and an empty armory, the Kremlin is being forced to turn to North Korea to stock up on vital supplies to fuel its ongoing war in Ukraine, according to a recently declassified U.S. intelligence report.

A U.S. official told ABC News that Russia’s Ministry of Defense was “in the process” of buying “millions of rockets and artillery shells” from the so-called Hermit Kingdom and that the purchases were an indication Moscow’s military “continues to suffer from severe supply shortages in Ukraine, due in part to export controls and sanctions.”

The official added that the intelligence community assessed it would likely become part of a pattern, with Russia seeking “to purchase additional North Korean military equipment going forward.” (Neither country has yet responded to the report.)

The Biden administration touted the development, first reported by The New York Times, as evidence that international sanctions — despite what experts have called some adverse ripple effects in the U.S. — were proving successful even as the White House resisted Kyiv’s calls to impose additional penalties against Russia by branding it a state sponsor of terrorism.

“Our sanctions, export controls and efforts to further isolate Russia from the global economy are having a significant impact,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday. “We are choking off Russia’s military supply chains.”

While North Korea wouldn’t be providing Moscow with the most cutting-edge military technology, its Soviet-era stockpiles could fill a pressing niche by restocking Russian forces with artillery shells compatible with its weapon systems developed during the same timeframe — ammunition it is struggling to supply.

“The fact that they’re reaching out to North Korea is a sign that that they’re having some challenges on the sustainment front,” Pentagon spokesman Brigadier Gen. Pat Ryder said Tuesday.

Ryder added that the intelligence on the weapons sale was declassified so the international community and the American public could better “understand the situation that Russia finds itself as they again continue to wage their campaign in Ukraine.”

So far, American officials have released little information about what — if any — action they intend to take to hinder or penalize Russia’s purchases from North Korea.

The State Department’s principal deputy spokesperson, Vedant Patel, said that the sale was a clear violation of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions that prohibit the procurement of arms from North Korea, but he declined to say whether the U.S. planned to raise the issue to the intergovernmental organization or take other steps.

“While all U.N. sanctions are a serious violation, I think particularly concerning here is that a permanent member of the Security Council is floating these measures,” Patel said, referring to Russia’s powerful status within the body.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby added the caveat that there was no indication that the purchase had been completed or that any arms from North Korea were currently being used on battlefields in Ukraine.

Pyongyang isn’t the only pariah Russia has sought to broker an arms deal with in recent weeks. Last month, Moscow acquired drones from Iran. A Department of Defense official told ABC News that while the Kremlin will likely seek to import several hundred more, the initial shipment performed poorly, experiencing “numerous failures.”

Weapons from North Korea and Iran might not significantly move the needle in Ukraine, but U.S. officials are watching carefully to see if a much more significant power comes to Russia’s aid: China.

Beijing and Moscow retain close trade and defense ties, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sparked concern that the two could forge a military alliance. (China officially remains neutral on the conflict.) The U.S. has warned of intense consequences for China should it sell Moscow military supplies, but so far, there’s no evidence it has violated export controls.

“In terms of what Russia may be asking of China or not, I don’t have any information to provide from the podium on that,” Pentagon spokesman Ryder said, “other than to say that, in an era of strategic competition, we’ll continue to keep a very close eye on Russia and China.”

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(ROSE ISLAND, Bahamas) — An American was killed in a shark attack while snorkeling in the Bahamas on Tuesday, authorities said.

The victim, a Pennsylvanian woman in her 50s, was attacked by a bull shark off Rose Island shortly before 2 p.m. local time Tuesday, Bahamas authorities said.

The woman was in a popular snorkeling area with her family when the attack occurred, police said. Five to seven people were snorkeling at the time.

The victim, who has not been publicly identified by police, was on a cruise with family, authorities said.

Royal Caribbean said in a statement that the woman was a guest on a seven-night Harmony of the Seas cruise that sailed from Port Canaveral, Florida, on Sunday.

She was on an “independent shore excursion” in Nassau when attacked by a shark and succumbed to her injuries at a local hospital, the company said.

“Royal Caribbean is providing support and assistance to the guest’s loved ones during this difficult time,” the statement said.

In June 2019, an American tourist snorkeling off Rose Island was killed in a shark attack. The victim, 21-year-old Loyola-Marymount University student Jordan Lindsey, died after a school of sharks attacked her.

ABC News’ Mina Kaji contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — One of Antarctica’s most important glaciers is holding on “by its fingernails” as warming temperatures around the globe threaten to cause further deterioration, which could then destabilize the glaciers in the entire region.

The Thwaites glacier, located in the Amundsen Sea in western Antarctica, is among the fastest-changing glaciers in the region, according to scientists. Along with Pine Island, also located in the Amundsen Sea, the two structures are responsible for the largest contribution of sea level rise out of Antarctica.

Now, scientists are finding that the Thwaites glacier, also known as the “Doomsday glacier,” is melting faster than previously thought as warm and dense deep water delivers heat to the present-day ice-shelf cavity and melts its ice shelves from below, according to a study published in Nature Geoscience on Monday.

Thwaites, which is about the size of Florida, has been known to be on a fast retreat. But researchers from the University of South Florida’s College of Marine Science and the British Antarctic Survey mapped a critical area of the seafloor in front of the glacier that could contribute to faster melting in the future.

Satellite imagery released in 2020 of Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers, which are located next to each other, showed highly crevassed areas and open fractures — both signs that the shear zones on both glaciers, where the ice shelf is thin, had weakened structurally over the past decade.

But scientists have now discovered that the retreat from the grounding zone of Thwaites glacier is closer to more than 2.1 kilometers per year — twice the rate observed by satellite imagery at the fastest-retreating part of the grounding between 2011 and 2019, according to the study.

The researchers documented more than 160 parallel ridges that have been created as a result of the glacier’s leading edge retreating and bobbing up and down with the daily tides. In addition, the scientists analyzed the rib-like formations submerged about a half of mile beneath the ocean, determining that each new rib was likely formed over a single day.

Large calving events, when a large piece breaks off, occurred on Thwaites in October 2018 and February 2020, when an unprecedented retreat of the ice shelf occurred. The feedback process, likely triggered by new damage to the ice shelf, resulted in ice shelves being preconditioned for further disintegration and large calving events.

This makes the ice shelves on Thwaites and Pine Island more sensitive to extreme climate change in the ocean, atmosphere and sea ice. If Thwaites and Pine Island were to destabilize, several of the neighboring areas would also fall apart, causing a widespread collapse, the scientists said. Thwaites alone could cause sea levels to rise about 10 feet, the scientists said.

In December, researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder predicted that Thwaites will last only a few more years before it collapses.

“Thwaites is really holding on today by its fingernails, and we should expect to see big changes over small timescales in the future – even from one year to the next – once the glacier retreats beyond a shallow ridge in its bed,” said Robert Larter, a British Antarctic Survey marine geophysicist and a co-author of the study, in a statement.

Researchers from the U.S., the U.K. and Sweden used a state-of-the-art robotic vehicle loaded with imaging sensors, nicknamed “Ran,” to collect the imagery and supporting geophysical data, described by Anna Wahlin, a physical oceanographer from the University of Gothenburg, as “a pioneering study of the ocean floor.”

“The images Ran collected give us vital insights into the processes happening at the critical junction between the glacier and the ocean today,” Wahlin said.

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