United Nations (UN) sanctions monitors said in a 32-page report to the Security Council’s North Korea sanctions committee on Monday, the 29th of April, that they had concluded that “debris recovered from a missile that landed in Kharkiv, Ukraine on the 2nd of January 2024 is a North Korean Hwasong-11 series missile” and violates the arms embargo imposed on North Korea, reports Reuters.
North Korea has been under UN sanctions over its ballistic missile and nuclear programmes since 2006, and these measures have become more stringent over the years.
Three observers travelled to Ukraine earlier this month to inspect the debris and found no evidence that the missile was made by Russia.
They “could not independently determine where the missile was launched from, nor who did it.”
According to the observers’ the 25th of April report to the Committee, the Ukrainian authorities have provided information on the trajectory of the missile, which shows that “it was launched on the territory of the Russian Federation”.
They suggested that if the missile was controlled by Russian forces, this would most likely mean that it was acquired by Russia, in violation of the arms embargo imposed on North Korea since 2006.
At a UN Security Council meeting in February, the US accused Russia of having fired ballistic missiles supplied by North Korea nine times at Ukraine.
UN observers pointed out that North Korea publicly test-fired a Hwasong-11 series ballistic missile in 2019.
Shortly after the 2nd of January attack, the Kharkiv regional prosecutor’s office showed fragments of the missile to the media, claiming that they were different from Russian models and suggesting that they could be North Korean-supplied missiles.
The US and other countries have accused North Korea of transferring weapons to Russia for use against Ukraine. Despite Moscow and Pyongyang’s denials of arms supplies, the two countries pledged last year to strengthen military cooperation.
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