Tag: North Korea

The locals are concerned that these balloon launches could lead to a North Korean provocation against them which is why there has been so much pushback:

A South Korean activist group called off its plan to launch balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets to the North across the heavily fortified frontier on Thursday after facing local opposition and police prevention due to potential security risks to residents.

Choi Sung-ryong, head of the Association of the Families of Those Abducted by North Korea, announced that the organization would cancel its decision to scatter propaganda leaflets in the North during a press conference held at the National Memorial for Abductees during the Korean War in the western border city of Paju, Gyeonggi Province.

The group had initially planned to float some 100,000 copies of the leaflet made of plastic — containing photos and descriptions of six abductee victims — attached to large balloons along with one-dollar bills on this day.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link, but the activists are now saying they are going to instead fly drones into North Korea instead which will actually be more provocative than the balloons.

It appears the North Korean ICBM has been modified to have even greater range now:

North Korea fired what could be a new intercontinental ballistic missile toward the sea east of the Korean Peninsula on Thursday, a day after South Korean defense intelligence authorities warned of Pyongyang preparing to stage large-scale provocations in the run-up to the US presidential election.

The missile flew for approximately 86 minutes, the longest time of any North Korean missile to date, traveling about 1,000 kilometers before falling into the waters between North Korea and Japan, according to South Korean and Japanese assessments. The missile was launched at a deliberately raised angle to reach a maximum altitude of 7,000 kilometers, a record height.

This ICBM is the first that North Korea launched since December last year, when it tested the solid-fueled Hwasong-18, which has a potential range of around 15,000 kilometers on a normal trajectory. The last ballistic missiles North Korea fired were multiple short-range ballistic missiles this September.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

Here is the latest information being put out about the North Korean troops dispatch to Russia:

A contingent of North Korean troops, including high-ranking generals, deployed to Russia may now be positioned on the front lines of the Ukraine war, South Korea’s spy agency reported Tuesday, adding that the Kim Jong-un regime appears to be clamping down on information about the troop dispatch internationally.

“Troop movements between Russia and North Korea have been assessed as underway, with the agency examining the potential relocation of certain personnel, including high-ranking military generals, to the front lines,” Rep. Lee Seong-kweun of the ruling People Power Party told reporters following the closed-door parliamentary audit of the National Intelligence Service.

“Russia has been training North Korean troops on around 100 Russian military terms, including terms such as ‘to the position,’ ‘artillery fire’ and ‘launch.’ However, there are indications that the North Korean military is struggling with these terms, leading to predictions that resolving communication issues will be difficult,” Lee conveyed in the NIS briefing.

Lee said the NIS also briefed that the Kim Jong-un regime has been “struggling to devise internal security measures in light of the spreading leak about troop deployments.”

The NIS, according to Lee, detected indications that “commissioned officers were banned from using mobile phones due to concerns over military secrets being leaked. Soldiers in the deployed units were ordered to remain silent, while families of the deployed were falsely told that they were merely participating in training exercises.”

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

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

You can read more at the link.

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.