During one of the recent missile attacks on Kyiv, russian invasion forces launched at least one tactical ballistic missile made in North Korea. Ukrainian air defense neutralized the missile; then local residents found the remnants, photographed them, and sent the photos to Defense Express.
In the images, we can see a piece of the missile's fuselage with markings uncharacteristic to the russian military. There are visible attempts to wipe out the marking.
Read more: North Korean KN-23 Missile Can Strike at 900 km, Analysts Assume
On the other side, big inscriptions of serial numbers have been observed on North Korean missiles and are distinctive to the weapons produced in DPRK. There is a theory that long numbers serve to make an impression of large quantities of such missiles in its arsenal.
The russian federation, conversely, usually tries not to put any markings on its missiles and other equipment, that's why armament researchers working in Ukraine often need to dismantle the samples and look for indications of origin and serial numbers on internal components.
It is challenging to identify whether it was a KN-23 or a KN-24 as of now. The debris of the downed missile was scattered across a vast territory. On top of that, just as in the case of the potentially North Korean missile that struck Kharkiv on January 4th, 2024, confirmation is complicated by a banal lack of reference information. Until the covert deals between russia and DPRK, none of these weapons ever left the country, maybe apart from those instances when they fell into the sea.
Read more: Detailed Photos of North Korean Missile That Struck Ukraine: Only One Korean Character Remained Inscribed After Attempts to Conceal the Origin
