- North Korea appears to have transferred different types of artillery systems to Russia.
- These are systems that have long threatened South Korea.
- The development comes as North Korean troops are fighting against Ukraine on behalf of Russia.
North Korea appears to have sent its big guns to Russia, furthering its support of Moscow's grinding war against Ukraine, a conflict in which artillery has been a dominant player.
The recent transfer of artillery pieces complements the thousands of troops North Korea has committed to the war to fight on behalf of the Russians and underscores the key role that shells and rockets continue to play in the conflict.
Images began to surface on social media last week showing what were identified as North Korean "Koksan" 170mm self-propelled howitzers traveling by rail across Russia.
The transfer of 170mm systems has since been confirmed by Western media reports citing South Korean intelligence, which says that Pyongyang has also transferred 240mm multiple rocket launch systems to Russia.
Can Kasapoğlu, a non-resident senior fellow at the Hudson Institute think tank, said Wednesday that the 170mm and 240mm systems are the two most powerful that North Korea owns.
The Koksan "has an operational range of 37 miles and can unleash an initial burst of four rounds in one minute, followed by one round every three minutes," Kasapoğlu wrote in a military situation report on Ukraine that was published Wednesday.
"It is designed to fire from protected areas and relocate for reloading. Pyongyang has hundreds of Koksan guns in its arsenal and can afford to send a significant number to the Kremlin," he added.
The first Koksan guns appeared in 1978, and then a newer version made an appearance in 1989. It is the longest-range non-rocket artillery system in the North Korean arsenal, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Missile Threat project. It can lob high-explosive shells roughly 25 miles or rocket-assisted shells out to around 37 miles.
On the high end, that range gives it a reach greater than some other artillery systems and puts its range just under that of the Guided Multiple Launch Rockets (GMLRS) for the US-provided High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS).
North Korea is said to have a highly capable artillery force with thousands of systems in its arsenal. In a 2021 report, the US Defense Intelligence Agency said Pyongyang could launch a "high-intensity, short-duration attack" on South Korea and mount an assault with little or no warning.
The DIA report said Pyongyang's artillery and armored force mainly consists of North Korean–produced copies of Soviet-era systems that are "largely based on old technology" but "reliable and easy to maintain."
While drones and other innovations have heavily defined the Ukraine war, artillery still plays a central role in the fight, with both sides using their guns to inflict significant casualties on the enemy. Kyiv has repeatedly raised concerns at times that it doesn't have enough ammunition from the West to keep up with Moscow, which is believed to have received millions of artillery shells and missiles from North Korea.
People watch a television screen showing a news broadcast with file footage of North Korea's artillery firing at a railway station in Seoul, South Korea, in January.
Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images
Artillery has long been described as the "king of battle," among other names, and that continues to be the case in Ukraine, even as other warfighting technologies come into play.
Kasapoğlu said that it's currently unclear whether North Korea sent the artillery pieces to support Russian units or for its own forces operating inside Russia's western Kursk region.
The US assesses that over 11,000 North Korean troops have deployed to Kursk, where Russia is attempting to take back territory that Ukrainian forces captured after they executed a daring cross-border invasion in early August.
North Korean forces have already engaged in combat against Kyiv's troops. The first battle actually involved artillery strikes, and shelling is a near-daily occurrence. NATO said the introduction of Pyongyang into the war is a "significant escalation" in the grinding conflict, which just passed the 1,000-day mark.
In response to the North Korean development, President Joe Biden lifted restrictions on Ukraine's use of longer-range missiles to strike targets inside Russia — a major policy shift in the final weeks of his term.