North Korean ballistic missiles have become much more accurate over past year - Reuters
Over the past year, the accuracy of the DPRK's missiles has increased to 50-100 metres from the intended target. The increase in weapon accuracy came suddenly after months of inaccurate launches.
According to Censor.NET, Reuters reports this with reference to sources.
Over the past few weeks, Russian troops have launched more than 20 North Korean ballistic missiles at Ukraine. All of them were significantly more accurate than before. The accuracy of the missiles has increased to 50-100 metres, Reuters' sources said. Previously, it was 1 kilometre.
Before participating in the war against Ukraine, North Korea was not able to test its weapons in real war conditions. But now they are producing missiles and receiving feedback from their customer, the Russian army, so they are gaining the experience needed to create better missiles.
Yang Wook, an arms expert at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul, said his sources in Ukraine reported that the latest batches of missiles that the DPRK has given to Russia were advanced. So far, it has not been possible to establish what exactly North Korea has changed. They may have been designed with improved navigation systems or steering mechanisms to make them easier to manoeuvre.
Russia starts launching North Korea's KN-23, KN-23A and KN-24 short-range ballistic missiles
The Reuters publication refers to the Korean K-23, K-23A and K-24 missiles. However, the Ukrainian Air Force uses the nomenclature "KN" to refer to them.
The Russian army has fired about 100 missiles at Ukraine since the end of 2023, one source told Reuters. According to him, the Korean missiles have a longer range than similar Russian "Iskander-M" ballistic missiles.
In February 2024, former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andrii Kostin said that Russia had launched 24 missiles from the DPRK at Ukraine. At that time, only two of them hit the specified coordinates relatively accurately. The rest had errors of several kilometres, and some exploded in midair.
As a reminder, North Korea keeps supplying arms to Russia, and the list may include another intermediate-range ballistic missile, the Pukguksong-2.
