Tag: North Korea

This was very predictable that North Korea would be preparing a provocation that coincides with the U.S. presidential election:

Military officials attend a parliamentary audit of the Defense Intelligence Agency at the National Assembly in Seoul on Oct. 30, 2024. (Pool photo) (Yonhap)

North Korea has completed preparations to launch a long-range missile and has put a mobile launcher in place, South Korea’s military intelligence agency said Wednesday.

The Defense Intelligence Agency gave the assessment during a parliamentary audit, noting the launch could take place before or after the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 5.

“It appears that preparations are nearly complete for an ICBM-class long-range missile, including a space launch vehicle,” the DIA said, according to Rep. Lee Seong-kweun of the ruling People Power Party and Rep. Park Sun-won of the main opposition Democratic Party.

“Preparations for a transporter erector launcher are complete, and it has been deployed to a certain area,” the agency added, though it said no missile has been mounted yet.

Yonhap

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This would be the next logical step in escalation from North Korea. With that said they have already flown drones multiple times over South Korea in the past showing how hypocritical their claims against the ROK now are:

Inter-Korean tensions are escalating over propaganda leaflets, as North Korea threatened, Monday, to deploy unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to drop leaflets over Seoul. The North also reiterated its claim that the South Korean military recently sent leaflet-distributing drones into its territory.

“It would be interesting to see how they will bark if a drone appears in Seoul and scatters leaflets,” Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, said in a statement via the North’s mouthpiece Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

Noting a hypothetical situation, she said, “An unidentified drone appears over Seoul and scatters leaflets denouncing ‘the puppet Yoon,’” apparently referring to President Yoon Suk Yeol. “Our military, individual organizations, or any individual have not flown any drones, cannot confirm such actions, and do not consider it worth responding to.”

Her remarks appear to sarcastically criticize the South Korean military’s response to North Korea’s claims that the South sent a drone carrying anti-regime leaflets over Pyongyang earlier this month and that they found debris from a UAV of the same type operated by the South Korea’s military. In response to these claims, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, “We cannot verify (the claim), and the claim is not worth replying.”

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It looks like the initial wave of 1,500 North Korean special operations troops sent to Russia are going to be used to try and help push Ukrainian troops out of the Russian territory of Kursk:

 Russia is using civilian-plated trucks to transport “mercenaries” from North Korea to a frontline area, Ukraine’s military intelligence service has said, amid concerns over North Korean troops possibly joining combat in Russia’s war on Ukraine.

On Sunday, Russian police officers stopped a truck with civilian license plates carrying North Korean military personnel on the Kursk-Voronezh highway, the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine said, noting the driver did not have a combat order.

The announcement comes amid reports of North Korean troops gathering in Russia’s southwestern region of Kursk, where a major Ukrainian incursion took place in August.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

One of the drones that flew over Pyongyang earlier this month carrying propaganda leaflets crashed and the North Koreans were able to extract information from it to determine it came from South Korea:

North Korea said Monday that its analysis of the flight log of a drone that crashed in Pyongyang earlier this month showed it took off from a South Korean border island in the Yellow Sea, insisting that the South Korean military is behind what it claimed were South Korea’s drone incursions.

South Korea’s military called the North’s latest claim “unilateral,” saying it is “unworthy” of verifying or responding to.

North Korea earlier claimed that South Korean drones carrying anti-North Korea propaganda leaflets were detected in the night skies over Pyongyang three times this month and threatened to respond with force if such flights occur again.

Announcing the final results of its probe into the drone incursions, North Korea’s defense ministry said it has analyzed the flight control program from the remains of a drone that crashed after intruding into the North on Oct. 8, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

The North said the drone took off from South Korea’s border island of Baengnyeong in the Yellow Sea at 11:25:30 p.m. on Oct. 8 and intruded into the territorial air of North Korea.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

A few years ago who would have imagined that North Korean troops and their flag would be flying over a Eastern European country?:

A pro-Russia Telegram account has posted a photo showing the Russian and North Korean flags side by side on a Ukrainian battlefield, indicating that North Korea has likely sent troops to support Russia in its prolonged war with Ukraine.

The image, shared by a blogger named @rvvoenkor_bot on Monday, showed the two flags raised together over a mine in Pokrovsk, one of the strongholds on Ukraine’s eastern front.

The blogger said that the North Korean flag has recently been raised on a hill at the mine near the city, which is one of the suspected locations where North Korean soldiers are believed to be stationed.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The ROK is informing North Korean Soldiers along the DMZ that they could potentially become cannon fodder in Putin’s war in Ukraine:

The South Korean loudspeakers blaring at the Demilitarized Zone are causing pain for the residents of the nearby Unification Village, the village chief told Stars and Stripes by phone Tuesday. Since Monday, the South Korean armed forces’ “Voice of Freedom” has been broadcasting around-the-clock to North Koreans that their troops are deployed to Russia to support the invasion of Ukraine, Lee Wanbae said.

“Not only me but also my villagers have been hearing the anti-Pyongyang loudspeaker broadcasts all day long every day,” he said. “The military broadcasts it from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. … and it is very loud. So, our ears are starting to hurt.” Unification Village, in a buffer zone just outside the DMZ, is just over a mile from the no-man’s land dividing the two countries.

Stars & Stripes

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North Korea kind of does have a point, it can do what it wants with things on their sovereign territory:

North Korea accused U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres of “double standards” Sunday, saying he urged Pyongyang to exercise restraint following its destruction of inter-Korean roads while remaining silent about South Korea’s alleged drone infiltration into the North.

Kim Son-gyong, North Korea’s vice foreign minister for international organizations, issued the statement after Guterres called for efforts to ease tensions and resume dialogue after the North blew up roads and rail lines on its side of the heavily fortified border on Tuesday. 

“I express deep displeasure over and categorically reject the remarks of interfering in the internal affairs” of North Korea, Kim said in the statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency.

Kim claimed the destruction of roads and rail lines within its territory falls under North Korea’s “sovereign right from A to Z” and should not be subject to interference from the U.N. secretary-general.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.