North Korea Claims to Have Found Wreckage of South Korean Drone in Pyongyang, Identifies it as Same Model as Drone Army Reportedly Possesses [Content unrelated to the article]

North Korea has threatened to make South Korea pay for allegedly infiltrating drones last September and on the 4th of this month.

This is feared to be an additional negative development for inter-Korean relations, which are already at a standstill.

A spokesperson for the General Staff of the Korean People's Army announced this in a statement titled "South Korea Must Be Prepared to Pay for Repeated Violations of Sovereignty by Drones," released to the Korean Central News Agency on the 10th.

The spokesperson claimed that on the 4th, an aerial target moving in a northerly direction was detected over the skies of Ganghwa-gun, Incheon, and was forced to crash 1,200 meters from Hill 101.5 in Muksan-ri, Kaepung-guyok, Kaesong City, using special electronic warfare assets.

The spokesperson stated, "The crashed drone was equipped with surveillance equipment," and that its recording device contained 6 minutes and 59 seconds, and 6 minutes and 58 seconds of video footage of North Korean territory.

North Korea also claimed there was a South Korean drone infiltration in September of last year, alleging that "even after the change of regime in Seoul, the provocations by South Korean entities near the border continued."

The spokesperson stated that an enemy drone that took off around 11:15 AM on September 27th last year from Paju-si, Gyeonggi Province, infiltrated the airspace over Pyeongsan-gun, North Hwanghae Province, on our side. While returning via Kaesong airspace, it crashed in a rice paddy in Sasi-ri, Changpung-gun, Kaesong City, due to electronic attack.

North Korea claimed that this drone also contained 5 hours and 47 minutes of video footage of North Korean territory.

The spokesperson stated, "The drones took off during the daytime from sensitive frontline areas of South Korea where civilian access is strictly controlled, and freely passed over areas where various low-altitude target detection radars and anti-drone equipment of the South Korean military are densely deployed," adding that "it is not difficult to guess the mastermind."

This points to the South Korean military as responsible for the drone infiltration.

The spokesperson stated, "While they preach about needing to 'create even a needle-tip sized opening' for communication with us, their continued provocations against us have once again contributed to fostering a hostile perception of the entity known as South Korea."

They further threatened, "The entity known as South Korea is our immutable and most hostile enemy, and a target that will surely be overthrown if it attacks. The reckless acts of South Korean warmongers, which are absolutely unacceptable, will surely be paid for."

The Central News Agency also released about 20 photos, claiming they were wreckage of drones shot down by the North Korean military last September and on the 4th of this month, along with attached recording devices and images captured by the drones.

Most of the identified drone parts in the photos were of American and Chinese origin, and a memory card with a Samsung logo was also visible.

Shin Jong-woo, Secretary-General of the Korea Defense Security Forum, commented, "It appears to have been assembled from commercially available civilian parts that can be easily purchased online, and does not resemble a typical military drone."

North Korea also released the flight paths recorded on the drones. The flight logs contained records of time, latitude, longitude, altitude, and surrounding place names. The photos claimed to be taken by the drones showed aerial views of Kaepung District, Kaesong City, Pyeongsan, North Hwanghae Province, and the Kaesong Industrial Complex area.

Earlier, North Korea claimed in October 2024 that the South Korean military had infiltrated drones into the skies over Pyongyang. At the time, the South Korean military stated, "We cannot confirm," but it was later confirmed through special prosecutor investigations that South Korean military operations had indeed occurred.