The drone sailed underwater for 59 hours, then detonated in an exercise designed to deter US and South Korean forces: KCNA.
North Korea has tested a new nuclear-capable submarine attack drone designed to unleash a “radioactive tsunami” that would destroy enemy naval ships and ports, state media reported.
During a military exercise this week under the leadership of the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, the North Korean military deployed and tested the new weapons system, whose mission was to test the ability to unleash a “superscale” destructive attack. explosion and wave, the country’s state news agency KCNA said on Friday.
“This nuclear submarine attack drone can be deployed on any coast and port or be towed by a surface ship for operation,” KCNA said.
The news agency said that during the exercise, the drone landed in the water off South Hamgyong Province on Tuesday and sailed underwater for 59 hours and 12 minutes, at a depth of about 80 to 150 meters (260 at 490 feet), before detonating. in waters off its east coast on Thursday.
KCNA did not elaborate on the drone’s nuclear capabilities.
The underwater drone system is intended to carry out sneak attacks in enemy waters and destroy naval strike groups and major operating ports, the news agency said.
North Korean state media reports that Kim Jong Un oversaw a recent weapons test, including a “new underwater offensive weapons system.” KCNA describes it as “Unmanned Submarine Nuclear Attack Ship ‘Haeil'”. (There is no previous indication that such a program existed in the DPRK.) pic.twitter.com/LHHp4V8B3D
—Ankit Panda (@nktpnd) March 23, 2023
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said the drone’s ultimate target was a simulated enemy port established in the waters of Hongwon Bay, according to the state media report.
The reported drone exercise comes as a US amphibious assault ship arrived in South Korea for joint military exercises codenamed “Freedom Shield.” After Pyongyang’s unprecedented year of weapons tests and saber rattling, the US and South Korea have intensified defense cooperation, kicking off on March 13 what will be their largest joint military exercises in five years. years.
Last weekend, the two allies conducted air and sea exercises with US B-1B strategic bombers. Their navies and marine corps are ready to begin full-scale Ssangyong amphibious landing exercises. Drills will continue for two weeks until April 3.
Yonhap said the North Korean news agency also criticized the joint US-South Korean exercises, which it said had “brought the military and political situation on the Korean peninsula to an irreversibly dangerous point.”
North Korea has long claimed that Washington and Seoul participated in military exercises such as rehearsals for a future invasion and that his own weapons tests were in response to such exercises.
According to KCNA, Kim Jong Un “guided” this week’s underwater drone exercise, saying it should serve as a warning to Washington and Seoul to “realize that the DPRK’s unlimited nuclear war deterrence capability is strengthens at a higher speed.
DPRK is the acronym for North Korea’s official name: Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
In a separate display of its military force this week, North Korea also confirmed that it had fired four cruise missiles on Wednesday to practice conducting tactical nuclear strike missions. The missiles were equipped with a “test warhead simulating a nuclear warhead” and flew from 1,500 to 1,800 km (932 to 1,120 miles), the KCNA news agency added on Friday.
The South Korean military confirmed Thursday that North Korea had fired four cruise missiles off the country’s east coast the previous day.
KCNA said two “Hwasal-1” type strategic cruise missiles and two “Hwasal-2” type strategic cruise missiles, launched in South Hamgyong province, accurately hit their set target in the East Sea, also known as Like the Sea of Japan.
Those launches come about a week after North Korea tested its largest and most powerful missile, a Hwasong-17, its second intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test so far this year.
