Russia Launches North Korean KN-23 Missiles After Months-Long Pause

Russia is again firing North Korean ballistic missiles at Ukraine after a months-long pause, the Ukrainian Air Force said. The KN-23 missile, a North Korean copy of the Russian Iskander, struck the central city of Kryvyi Rih on July 30 and the southern Zaporizhzhia region on Tuesday. Before those attacks, the last known launch was in December 2025.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday that Russia had received additional ballistic missiles from North Korea. Col. Yurii Ihnat, the Ukrainian Air Force spokesperson, said the KN-23 is essentially a North Korean version of the Iskander with a larger warhead. Russia may not have transferred full technical information, leading to differences in guidance and manufacturing, Ihnat said. He described this as a "common practice" when sharing sensitive military technology.

The missile used in the July 30 strike went off course by roughly 15 kilometers and killed an entire family, according to Maj. Gen. Vadym Skibitskyi, the deputy head of Ukraine's military intelligence agency. He told local media after the attack. The poor accuracy is a key feature of the KN-23, which appears to be a less precise copy of the Russian original.

Conflict analysts at the Institute for the Study of War, a US think tank, assessed this week that Russia is launching small numbers of KN-23s "in nightly strike packages in an attempt to battle-test the missiles and improve their accuracy." The analysts wrote in a battlefield assessment that the delivery of additional KN-23s will allow Russia to intensify its missile attacks without depleting its stockpiles of other weapons. Russia has ramped up ballistic missile strikes this year, launching nearly 200 in July alone, mainly targeting Kyiv.

Ukraine's most reliable defense against ballistic missiles is the Patriot air defense system made by the US. Interceptor stocks are depleted, making it difficult to stop Russia's attacks, this summer in particular. Ukrainian officials have called on partner nations to send more Patriot interceptors, which are in high demand globally. Kyiv is developing a pan-European air defense system to engage Russian ballistic missiles at a lower cost than the Patriot, Ukrainian officials said.

Zelenskyy warned that the more missile strikes there are in Ukraine, the more North Korea will be able to improve its capabilities, which could eventually pose a greater threat to US allies in the Pacific. Russia cannot wage war without North Korean support, Zelenskyy said in an address to the nation. Neither Russia's defense ministry nor its US embassy responded to a request for comment on the Ukrainian assessments.