01/10/2026, 07:1901/10/2026, 07:19
The supposedly South Korean drone was shot down by the North Korean military.Image: keystone
Pyongyang has accused South Korea of violating North Korea’s sovereignty with a drone flight. A surveillance drone is said to have taken off from the South Korean city of Incheon on January 4th and used a camera to film important facilities in North Korea. The North Korean military shot down the flying object within its own airspace, the state news agency KCNA reported. She also published photos of the downed drone and its alleged surveillance footage. The information cannot be independently verified.
North Korea also accused the neighboring country of a similar case having already occurred in September last year. At that time, South Korea’s military is also said to have flown a drone over North Korean airspace. This drone was also shot down, KCNA reported.
South Korea’s Defense Minister Ahn Gyu Back denied the army’s involvement in both cases. The drones in question in the now published photos are not models used by the South Korean military, he told South Korea’s official Yonhap news agency. North Korea’s claims are “absolutely not true.”
KCNA quoted a North Korean military spokesman as calling South Korea the “most hostile state” toward Pyongyang whose nature will never change. “The military warmongers of the Republic of Korea will certainly have to pay a high price for their unforgivable hysteria,” it continued.
North Korea had already accused South Korea of using a drone to penetrate into the North Korean capital Pyongyang in October 2024. South Korean ex-President Yoon Suk Yeol is said to be behind the incident, and South Korean investigators accuse him of, among other things, ordering a secret drone operation on North Korean territory in order to provoke a military response from the neighboring country. Yoon, who unexpectedly declared martial law in December 2024 and is now in custody, denies the allegations.
North and South Korea are still formally in a state of war, as the Korean War from 1950 to 1953 only ended with an armistice, but a peace treaty was never signed. (sda/dpa)