The U.S. Department of Defense intelligence agency released an unclassified report on Wednesday (May 29th) confirming that Russia used a new type of ballistic missile manufactured in North Korea during the war in Ukraine. Ukrainian military authorities had previously confirmed that the missile had a hit rate of only 20%.
The report presented a photo of a solid-fueled short-range ballistic missile (SRRM) under development, as published by the North Korean state media. The photo was taken when North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visited a ballistic missile factory in August of the previous year.
Analysts from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) conducted a comparative analysis between this photo and images of missile debris found in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine on January 2nd this year. The report indicated that the missile debris discovered in Ukraine visually matched the official North Korean missile photo.
Evidence listed in the report suggested that the recovered missile fragments belonged to North Korea’s most advanced “Hwasong-18” short-range missile. The missile is a three-stage solid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missile developed by North Korea, also being their first solid-fueled intercontinental missile.
The Defense Intelligence Agency subsequently released a statement confirming, “Analysis results confirm that Russia used North Korea-produced ballistic missiles during the war in Ukraine. Fragments of North Korean missiles have been found in various parts of Ukraine.”
In March of this year, Yuriy Belousov, the head of the War Crimes Department at the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office, stated in an interview with the Japanese media agency Kyodo that Russia’s attacks in Ukraine involved approximately 50 North Korean missiles, resulting in 24 deaths and over 100 injuries. An initial assessment indicated that about 80% of North Korean missiles failed to hit their targets, with half exploding in mid-air.
Despite the low accuracy rate, Ukrainian officials expressed concerns that Russia and North Korea may consider Ukraine as a missile test site, utilizing the Ukrainian battlefield to track the effectiveness of their weapons.
Since the outbreak of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, military cooperation between North Korea and Russia has been intensifying. In January of this year, the U.S. government condemned Russia for acquiring North Korean ballistic missiles and stated that Russia launched North Korean-supplied missiles at targets within Ukrainian territory on December 30th and January 2nd.
In September of last year, Kim Jong-un met with Putin in the Russian Far East. According to information held by the U.S. intelligence community, the White House reported that both countries have been actively advancing weapon trade and strategic cooperation since the meeting. North Korea provided Russia with over 1,000 containers of military equipment and ammunition.
In addition to test-firing North Korea’s new missiles on the Ukrainian battlefield, Russia has also obstructed UN oversight of international sanctions against North Korea. On March 28th of this year, Moscow vetoed the annual extension for the UN sanctions monitoring group. For the past 15 years, this group has been overseeing the implementation of UN sanctions against North Korea.
In the final days of its tenure, the monitoring group submitted a report confirming for the first time that North Korean-made ballistic missiles had struck the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, in violation of UN sanctions.