North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un is urging his nation’s military factories to increase their production of suicide drones as the nation’s troops are engaged in their first military conflict in decades.
Kim observed a demonstration of the country’s latest unmanned aerial vehicles on Friday and demanded the technology be further advanced and produced on a larger scale to keep the impoverished country equipped to handle modern military threats.
“The competition for using UAVs as the main means of military capabilities by introducing innovative technology is being accelerated in the world,” the supreme leader said, according to North Korean news outlets. “It is easy to use them as a component of striking power in a new domain for their ever-expanding range of use in military activities, low production cost, and simple production lines.”
Korean Central News Agency released photos of the demonstration, showing what appears to be a commercial sedan blown apart by the strike.
The sudden embrace of military drone technology is not random. Korean People’s Army soldiers and officers are currently garrisoned in Russia as they aid in the invasion of Ukraine. Suicide drones are being utilized to make remote strikes on both sides of the conflict, and it is suspected Russia is sharing some of that technology with North Korea.
Suicide drones, also known as “kamikaze drones,” are cheap UAVs containing explosives that are able to hover and navigate complex paths before striking or detonating. They are relatively easy to shoot down when spotted but can be difficult for air defense systems to detect.
The Korean People’s Army is one of the largest militaries in the world in terms of personnel and percentage of national GDP. It maintains over a million active soldiers and consumes approximately a quarter of the country’s gross domestic product.
The crown jewel of the military is its nuclear weapons program. Its development and maintenance exacerbate the economic turmoil caused by international sanctions but have resulted in enough fissile material for hundreds of nuclear missiles.
Kim told the state media Friday that North Korea will need to reevaluate its military theory and training to better incorporate drone technology.
“The military authorities in the world might have recognized that the UAVs are achieving clear successes in big and small conflicts. This is a current trend that has emerged as an essential requirement in military aspects,” Kim said.
He continued, “Such an objective change poses a pressing need to update many parts of military theory, practice, and education and keenly calls upon the fields of defense science and education to take prompt, practical actions and redouble their efforts.”
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Approximately 10,000 personnel of the Korean People’s Army are reportedly stationed in Russian territory outside the Ukrainian-held region of Kursk.
The Russian invasion presented impoverished soldiers with a rare opportunity to advance in North Korean society. Soldiers who served in active combat were richly rewarded with prestigious jobs and higher salaries upon their return.