The head of a research organization that has been tracing weapons used in attacks in Ukraine since 2018 on Friday told the UN Security Council it has “irrefutably” established that ballistic missile remnants found in Ukraine came from North Korea.
The US and its Western allies clashed with Russia and North Korea at the meeting, saying both countries contravened a UN embargo on arms exports from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), the country’s official name.
Russia dismissed the “baseless accusations,” and North Korea dismissed the meeting as “an extremely brazen act” to discuss “someone’s alleged ‘weapon transfers.’”
Photo: AP
Jonah Leff, director of operations at Conflict Armament Research, gave the council a detailed analysis of the remnants of the missile that struck Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, on Jan. 2.
The organization documented the missile’s rocket motor, its tail section and almost 300 components manufactured by 26 companies from eight countries and territories, and determined the missile was either a KN-23 or KN-24 manufactured last year in North Korea, Leff said.
The organization reached its conclusion based on the missile’s unique characteristics — its diameter, distinct jet vane actuators that direct the missile’s thrust and trajectory, the pattern around the igniter, the presence of Korean characters on some rocket components, and other marks and components dating back to last year, he said.
“Following the initial documentation, our teams inspected three additional identical DPRK missiles that struck Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia earlier this year,” Leff said.
The council discussed illegal arms transfers from North Korea at the request of France, Japan, South Korea, the UK and the US.
The meeting followed Russia’s March 28 veto that ended the monitoring of sanctions against North Korea over its expanding nuclear program by a UN panel of experts. The US and its European and Asian allies accused Moscow of seeking to avoid scrutiny as it allegedly contravenes sanctions to buy weapons from Pyongyang for its war in Ukraine.
US Deputy Ambassador to the UN Robert Wood called Leff’s presentation with its many technical details “quite compelling,” and told the council that while Russia might have ended the panel’s monitoring with China’s “tacit support,” the briefing showed that Moscow and Beijing “cannot prevent the public from learning about the unlawful arms transfers occurring between the DPRK and Russia.”
Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia accused the meeting’s Western sponsors of attempting to use the Security Council “to trot out an anti-Russian and anti-North Korean narrative and to disseminate baseless accusations in order to detract attention from their own destructive actions, which foment escalation in the region.”
Meanwhile, in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin called for resuming production of intermediate-range missiles that were banned under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which the US withdrew from in 2019.
“We need to start production of these strike systems and then, based on the actual situation, make decisions about where — if necessary to ensure our safety — to place them,” Putin said at a meeting of the Russian Security Council.
DEATH THREAT: A MAC official said that it has urged Beijing to avoid creating barriers that would impede exchanges across the Strait, but it continues to do so People should avoid unnecessary travel to China after Beijing issued 22 guidelines allowing its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death “Taiwan independence separatists,” the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday as it raised its travel alert for China, including Hong Kong and Macau, to “orange.” The guidelines published last week “severely threaten the personal safety of Taiwanese traveling to China, Hong Kong and Macau,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) told a news conference in Taipei. “Following a comprehensive assessment, the government considers it necessary to elevate the travel alert to orange from yellow,” Liang said. Beijing has
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday said that the Chinese Communist Party was planning and implementing “major” reforms, ahead of a political conclave that is expected to put economic recovery high on the agenda. Chinese policymakers have struggled to reignite growth since late 2022, when restrictions put in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic were lifted. The world’s second-largest economy is beset by a debt crisis in the property sector, persistently low consumption and high unemployment among young people. Policymakers “are planning and implementing major measures to further deepen reform in a comprehensive manner,” Xi said in a speech at the Great Hall
CIVIL DEFENSE: More reservists in alternative service would help establish a sound civil defense system for use in wartime and during natural disasters, Kuma Academy’s CEO said While a total of 120,000 reservists are expected to be called up for alternative reserve drills this year, compared with the 6,505 drilled last year, the number has been revised to 58,000 due to a postponed training date, Deputy Minster of the Interior Ma Shih-yuan (馬士元) said. In principle, the ministry still aims to call up 120,000 reservists for alternative reserve drills next year, he said, but the actual number would not be decided later until after this year’s evaluation. The increase follows a Legislative Yuan request that the Ministry of the Interior address low recruitment rates, which it made while reviewing
SOLUTIONS NEEDED: Taiwan must attract about 400,000 to 500,000 skilled foreign workers due to population decline, the minister of economic affairs said in Washington President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration is considering a plan to import labor to deal with an impending shortage of engineers and other highly skilled workers, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said in Washington on Tuesday. Kuo was leading a delegation attending the SelectUSA Investment Summit. Taiwan must attract about 400,000 to 500,000 skilled foreign workers for high-end manufacturing jobs by 2040, he said. Ministry of Economic Affairs officials are still calculating the precise number of workers that are needed, as it works on loosening immigration restrictions and creating incentives, Kuo said. Taiwanese firms operating factories in the US and other countries would