Pyongyang says it recovered remains of South Korean drone

This picture taken on August 24, 2024 and released by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on August 26 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (front C) inspecting a performance test of drones organized by the Drone Institute of the Academy of Defense Sciences at an undisclosed location in North Korea. (Photo by KCNA VIA KNS / AFP)

North Korea claimed Saturday it had discovered the remains of at least one crashed South Korean military drone in the capital Pyongyang, releasing images of the device that some analysts confirmed was South Korean.

The nuclear-armed North recently accused Seoul of using drones to drop anti-regime propaganda leaflets on the capital.

Pyongyang’s defense ministry spokesman said security authorities found the remains of a crashed drone during a search of the North Korean capital on October 13, the official KCNA news agency reported.

The North’s investigation “scientifically proved that the drone came from the ROK,” the unnamed spokesman said, using South Korea’s official acronym.

South Korea’s military initially denied sending drones, but has subsequently declined to comment.

“There is no value in verifying or responding to North Korea’s unilateral claims,” it said in a brief statement Saturday.

North Korea has previously warned it would consider it “a declaration of war” if another drone was detected.

The North Korean official claimed the drone was of the same type as a vehicle-mounted drone publicly displayed by the South Korean military during an Armed Forces Day event in Seoul on October 1 last year.

KCNA released several images of what it claimed was the recovered drone, including one showing it lodged in a tree and others featuring North Koreans who appeared to be officials.

Hong Min, a senior analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification, said that based on the images released by the North, the drone was “clearly a long-range reconnaissance small drone used by … the South Korean military”.

“It is the same model that our military showcased during the Armed Forces Day event last year,” he told AFP.

– North ‘sending troops to Russia’ –

Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, said if the North’s allegations are true, it could mean the South “had been conducting reconnaissance (in the North) with military drones.”

But the North Korean official appeared to slightly amend Pyongyang’s previous claim that the South used the drones to drop propaganda leaflets over the North Korean capital.

“It is quite likely that the drone is the one which scattered leaflets over the centre of Pyongyang Municipality,” he said, but added: “But the conclusion has not yet been drawn.

Relations between the two sides have deteriorated since North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in January defined Seoul as his country’s “principal enemy” and said the North was no longer interested in reunification.

The latest developments came a day after South Korea’s spy agency said Pyongyang had decided to send a “large-scale” troop deployment to support Moscow’s war in Ukraine, with 1,500 special forces already in Russia’s Far East and undergoing training.

“North Korea is currently sending elite troops to Russia and providing weapons,” analyst Hong said, noting that Pyongyang now needs to better manage its internal military resources after diverting special forces and equipment to help Moscow.

“So this seems to be a response that emphasizes preventing a recurrence rather than escalating tensions with South Korea,” he added.

Pyongyang has itself sent drones southwards — in 2022, five North Korean drones crossed the border, prompting the South Korean military to fire warning shots and deploy fighter jets.

The jets failed to shoot down any of the drones.