Around half the North Korean missiles launched by Russia on Ukraine have exploded in midair due to malfunction, according to the Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office.
The prosecutor's office provided that estimate to Reuters in a story published on Tuesday, citing examined debris from what they said were North Korean ballistic missiles fired by Russia between December and February.
The United States, South Korea and other countries have accused Pyongyang of providing Russia with missiles, artillery shells and other weaponry to aid Moscow's forces in the ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Both Russia and North Korea have denied that such transfers have taken place.
According to Reuters, "North Korean missiles account for a tiny portion of Russia's strikes during its war on Ukraine," and Kyiv says the failure rate of those missiles is high.
"About half the North Korean missiles lost their programmed trajectories and exploded in the air; in such cases the debris was not recovered," the office of Ukraine's top prosecutor, Andriy Kostin, told Reuters in a statement.
Newsweek reached out to the Kremlin and North Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs via email on Tuesday night for comment.
In September 2023, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met with Russian President Vladimir Putin for a summit in Russia's Far East. The U.S. said North Korea began sending missiles and artillery to Russia after the meeting.
The United Kingdom in January submitted satellite images to United Nations experts that allegedly showed North Korean cargo shipments to Russia. Citing this evidence, the U.K. called for an investigation into arms deals that may violate international sanctions.
Kostin's office told Reuters that investigators have examined debris from 21 ballistic missile cases that they said were manufactured by North Korea. Three of those cases were reportedly fired at the capital of Kyiv, while others targeted the regions of Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kirovohrad and Poltava.
The office noted that the 50 missiles that were allegedly made by North Korea were fired from Russia's Belgorod, Kursk and Voronezh regions.
Reuters said the statement from the Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office did not indicate if any of the missiles they examined had been shot down by Ukraine's air defenses. The news agency also said that "ballistic missiles are typically hard to intercept because of their trajectory and speed."
"According to Kostin's office, Ukrainian authorities were still investigating whether Pyongyang had dispatched instructors to monitor the ballistic missile launches," Reuters added.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Jon Jackson is an Associate Editor at Newsweek based in New York. His focus is on reporting on the Ukraine ... Read more
