Kim Jong Un presents North Korea’s advanced ‘Suicide Drones’

• North Korea plans to introduce artificial intelligence technology into drone development.
• The drones pose a significant threat to South Korea’s national security and critical facilities.
• South Korea launched a drone operation command in 2023 to address the growing threat.

On Monday, North Korea unveiled a new “suicide drone,” according to state media. Leader Kim Jong Un oversaw a performance test of the weapons, which experts believe might have originated from Russia. Wearing a cream baker boy hat, Kim was shown beaming as he used high-powered binoculars to watch the drones destroy targets, as depicted in state media images.

Kim said that “it is necessary to develop and produce more suicide drones,” the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported, in addition to “strategic reconnaissance and multi-purpose attack drones.”

Suicide drones are unmanned drones equipped with explosives, designed to crash deliberately into enemy targets and function as guided missiles.

The nuclear-armed North’s growing drone fleet will “be used within different striking ranges to attack any enemy targets on the ground and in the sea,” KCNA said.

All the drones North Korea tested on August 24 “correctly identified and destroyed the designated targets after flying along different preset routes,” it added.

Kim also stated that his country would work on “proactively introducing artificial intelligence technology into the development of drones.” Experts noted that the drones shown in the state media images resembled the Israeli-made “HAROP” suicide drone, the Russian-made “Lancet-3,” and the Israeli “HERO 30.”

North Korea may have acquired these technologies from Russia, which likely obtained them from Iran. Tehran is suspected of accessing the technology through hacking or theft from Israel.

“The suicide drone resembling the HAROP can fly over 1,000 km (600 miles),” said Cho Sang-keun, a professor at South Korea’s Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. Cho added that this poses a significant threat to South Korea’s national security and critical facilities.

“They are showing off that they have the ability to hit everything from the tactical level to the strategic level.”

“Should there be a provocation or an international conflict, the South Korean army would inevitably sustain significant damage from these suicide drones,” said Cho.

In 2022, Pyongyang sent drones across the border, and Seoul’s military could not shoot them down, citing their small size. In response, South Korea launched a drone operation command in 2023 to better address the growing threat.

Since North Korea’s founding after World War II, Pyongyang and Moscow have been allies, growing even closer since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The United States and South Korea have accused North Korea of supplying ammunition and missiles to Russia for its war in Ukraine.

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