Russia gifts North Korea ‘battlefield laboratory’ for weapons tests by using its missiles against Ukraine

Name: Satellite imagery suggests North Korea is supplying Russia with weapons through Rason port
Uploaded: 2024-04-07T05:31:49.000Z
Duration: 4 min 33 s
Description: Satellite imagery suggests North Korea is supplying Russia with weapons through Rason port

The North Korean military wouldn’t otherwise have had the opportunity to combat test its weapons and learn lessons to improve them, a US general says

Russia is thought to be using North Korea’s Hwasong-11s, a class of short-range ballistic missile that can reliably hit targets 380km to 800km away

3-MIN READ3-MIN

The North Korean military test-fires projectiles during a firing drill last month in this picture released on March 19 by Pyonygang’s official Korean Central News Agency. Photo: KCNA via Reuters

Bloomberg

Published: 1:31pm, 7 Apr 2024Updated: 1:39pm, 7 Apr 2024

Russia’s use of North Korean missiles in its assault in Ukraine is giving Pyongyang a rare chance to test its weapons in combat and perhaps take away lessons that could improve their performance, a top US general said.

“I don’t believe that in my recent memory that the North Korean military has had a battlefield laboratory quite like the Russians are affording them to have in Ukraine,” said General Charles Flynn, the US Army Pacific’s commanding general.

That gives North Korea an opportunity to gain valuable information in technical matters, procedures and the munitions themselves. The US will be watching closely how this unfolds, Flynn said on Saturday during a visit to the sprawling US Army Garrison Humphreys, about 80km (50 miles) south of Seoul.

Flynn said a great concern for him and others is that North Korea will be able to learn things about their weapons “they would otherwise not have access to absent a conflict” like the war in Ukraine.

The US will be deploying missile systems with mid-range capability to the Indo-Pacific region soon, Flynn said, without giving further details on timing or locations. Such a move could draw the ire of China, which in 2019 warned that US allies in the region risked countermeasures if they accepted the deployment of intermediate-range American missiles.

The United States, South Korea and others have accused North Korea of sending to Russia its newest nuclear-capable ballistic missiles that are easy to hide, quick to deploy and hard to shoot down. Images provided by the US indicate they are Hwasong-11s, a wide class of short-range ballistic missile that can reliably hit targets with a high degree of precision, according to weapons experts.

04:33

Satellite imagery suggests North Korea is supplying Russia with weapons through Rason port

They have ranges of 380km to 800km and increase the pool of weapons Russian President Vladimir Putin can draw upon. Prosecutors in Kharkiv said in March that Russian forces have fired North Korean missiles at Ukraine about 50 times since the start of the invasion, providing documentation for what it said included a Hwasong-11 family missile, specialist service NK News reported.