North Korea: Pyongyang claims to have recovered the wreckage of a South Korean drone

North Korea claimed on Saturday to have recovered the wreckage of at least one drone “from South Korea”, publishing images of the device which some experts confirmed was of South Korean origin.

On October 11, the North accused Seoul of sending drones loaded with propaganda leaflets into the airspace of its capital Pyongyang, which the South denied.

However, a spokesperson for the North Korean Defense Ministry said on Saturday that the country’s security forces had found a crashed drone in Pyongyang on October 13, according to the official KCNA news agency.

Pyongyang targets Seoul

The investigations carried out “scientifically proved that the drone came from the Republic of Korea,” said this spokesperson, whose name was not communicated, using the official name of South Korea.

The official assured that the machine was of the same type as those exhibited in Seoul during the military parade for Armed Forces Day in 2023.

However, he clarified that it was only “rather likely” that this drone was the one that “scattered leaflets in the center of the municipality of Pyongyang”, while the North had previously been affirmative.

“Long-range reconnaissance drone”

KCNA has published several images of what it says is the South Korean aircraft, including one where it appears stuck in a tree. These photos clearly show “a small long-range reconnaissance drone used by (…) the South Korean army,” Hong Min, an analyst at the Korea Institute for National Reunification, told AFP.

According to North Korea, the drone was found in Pyongyang’s Hyongjesan district. However, according to Hong Min, this sector is close to the North Korean missile research center in Sanum. The machine “may have been used for (a) reconnaissance mission,” believes the expert.

The South Korean military denied involvement and then stopped commenting on the incident, while local speculation points to militant groups from South Korea used to sending propaganda and dollars to the North, usually by flying balloons. . Pyongyang has warned that it will consider any further incident of this type as a “declaration of war”.

In 2022, North Korea sent drones to the South, five of which managed to cross the border, leading the South Korean military to carry out warning shots and deploy fighter jets. The latter failed to shoot down a single drone.

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