Panel of experts tells UN Security Council that the discovery of the weapon indicates a violation of international sanctions against Pyongyang.
Debris from a missile that landed in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on January 2 came from a North Korean Hwasong-11 series ballistic missile, United Nations sanctions monitors told a Security Council Committee (UNSC) in a report obtained by the news agency Reuters available Monday.
In the 32-page report, UN sanctions monitors concluded that “the debris recovered from a missile that landed in Kharkiv, Ukraine on January 2, 2024 was from a Hwasong-11 series missile the DPRK” and constitute a violation of the arms embargo against North Korea.
North Korea, officially known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), has been under UN sanctions since 2006 over its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs, and those measures have been tightened over the years.
Three sanctions monitors traveled 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 fired from or by whom.”
“Information about the trajectory provided by the Ukrainian authorities suggests that it was launched from the territory of the Russian Federation,” they wrote in an April 25 report to the U.N. Security Council North Korea Sanctions Committee.
“Such a location, if the missile were under the control of Russian forces, would likely indicate procurement by nationals of the Russian Federation,” they said, adding that it would be a violation of the arms embargo on North Korea.
The Russian and North Korean missions to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the monitors’ report.
The United States and others have accused North Korea of supplying weapons to Russia for use against Ukraine, which it fully invaded in February 2022. Moscow and Pyongyang have denied the allegations but promised last year to deepen military ties.
At a Security Council meeting in February, the United States accused Russia of firing ballistic missiles supplied by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea against Ukraine at least nine times.
The UN monitors said the Hwasong-11 series of ballistic missiles were first publicly tested by Pyongyang in 2019.
Russia last month vetoed the annual renewal of the U.N. sanctions monitoring board – a so-called expert panel – that has overseen the enforcement of international sanctions against North Korea for 15 years. The mandate of the current expert committee expires on Tuesday.
Just days after the January 2 attack, the Kharkiv region’s prosecutor’s office presented fragments of the missile to the media, saying it was different from Russian models and “it could be a missile supplied by North Korea.”