BY Akanksha Raj
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Armaments Research Institute recognized the missiles’ likely provenance.
According to Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin, Russia has fired at least 24 North Korean-made ballistic missiles toward Ukraine since late December.
“Preliminary identification is Kn-23/24,” Kostin told reporters on Friday. Between December 30 and February 7, Kremlin troops launched at least 12 missile attacks on seven locations, including the capital Kyiv and Kharkiv in the northeast, resulting in several fatalities, he added.
The Ukrainian defense ministry’s Armaments Research Institute and the prosecutor general’s office have confirmed the rockets’ most likely origin.
The specialists examined the projectiles’ tracking data, flight path, level of destruction, debris, markings, and symbols. They determined that the rockets have bigger diameters than comparable Russian and Soviet-era variants.
The missiles’ accuracy is uncertain, according to the official. Only two of the roughly two dozen were believed to have hit their intended targets. These were Ukraine’s Kremenchuk oil refinery and the Kanatove airstrip, both located in the central area. According to Kostin, the rest either diverted from their path or disintegrated in midair.
The state attorney general’s office is still investigating the missiles and their components and expects to disclose the findings soon. So yet, the CIA has no information on how many shells have been or will be transferred to Russia by Kim Jong Un’s regime.
In early January, US intelligence confirmed that Russia began firing North Korean missiles over Ukraine.
The Biden administration has used Russia’s attempts to amass equipment from nations such as Iran and North Korea to argue that sanctions and Ukraine and its allies’ war actions have depleted Russian military reserves, necessitating additional arms shipments from the US.
Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in eastern Russia in September, with the US claiming the meetings were about expanding bilateral military transactions. In January, Putin met with North Korea’s foreign minister to discuss potential future arms supplies.
Putin also promised improved ties with Iran in January after meeting with his Iranian counterpart, Ebrahim Raisi.
The European Union has recommended penalties against North Korea for arming Russia with missiles deployed against Ukraine, according to papers seen by Bloomberg this week.
Ballistic missiles, notably those from North Korea, are thought to be difficult to intercept. The US Patriot battery is the only air defense system capable of reliably dealing with this sort of munitions.