North Korean missile relies on recent electronic components

Background

Conflict Armament Research (CAR) has determined that a ballistic missile produced by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) and recovered in Ukraine includes more than 290 non-domestic electronic components. CAR investigators, documenting missile remnants after an attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, found not only that many of these components bear the brands of companies based primarily in the United States but that a large number were produced within the last three years. North Korea's ability to produce and transfer advanced weapons, while acquiring material internationally to fuel its missile programme in spite of long-standing United Nations sanctions, is the latest evidence of countries undermining global non-proliferation regimes.

North Korea, just like  Iran  and the  Russian Federation , relies on the global semiconductor industry to acquire components that are critical to its military production. CAR’s findings show how difficult it is to effectively control the export of commercial electronic components, but also just how reliant these countries are on non-domestic technology.

CAR investigators, documenting missile remnants after an attack in Kharkiv, found not only that many of these components bear the brands of companies based primarily in the United States but that a large number were produced within the last three years.

This dispatch, CAR’s 13th since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, marks the first public identification of North Korea’s reliance on non-domestic technology for its missile programme. As CAR is closely working with industry to trace the missile components and identify the entities responsible for their diversion, this report will not identify the companies linked to their production.

The missile’s electronic components

On 27 January and 1 February 2024, a CAR field investigation team physically documented the remnants of a North Korean ballistic missile recovered in Kharkiv on 2 January 2024. CAR has previously documented other remnants from the missile, probably a KN-23 or a KN-24, first reporting on the  use of North Korean missiles  in the conflict in January 2024.

CAR documented electronic components among the missile remnants, primarily forming parts of the navigation system. CAR’s documentation shows that the North Korean missile includes many recently manufactured components bearing the marks of companies mostly based in the United States. 

CAR documented more than 290 components, comprising 50 unique models. From marks observed on these components, CAR identified 26 companies, headquartered in eight jurisdictions (China, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Singapore, Switzerland, Taiwan, and the United States), that are linked to the production of these components.

CAR will dispatch trace requests to these companies. The findings in this report are based on the marks documented by CAR. Observations may change based on the responses CAR receives from the identified companies during the tracing process.

Half the components documented bore identifiable date codes, and more than 75 per cent of those codes indicated production between 2021 and 2023. Based on those production dates, CAR concludes that the missile recovered in Kharkiv could not have been assembled before March 2023. This illustrates the recent production of the missile and the short window of its  reported  transfer to the Russian Federation before being used in the Kharkiv attack in January 2024. 

Based on those production dates, CAR concludes that the missile recovered in Kharkiv could not have been assembled before March 2023.

A critical point for non-proliferation regimes

CAR’s discovery of recently produced, non-domestic electronic components in a North Korean ballistic missile used in Ukraine highlights the significant challenges currently facing global non-proliferation regimes. This finding has three important dimensions:

• It shows that North Korea has been able to produce advanced weapons, integrating components produced as recently as 2023, in spite of  United Nations Security Council sanctions  in place since 2006 that prohibit the production of ballistic missiles by North Korea.

• It shows that, despite long-standing international sanctions on such activities, North Korea could have transferred the weapon to the Russian Federation after the start of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

• The presence of a large proportion of recently produced non-domestic electronic components in a North Korean ballistic missile strongly suggests that the country has developed a robust acquisition network capable of circumventing, without detection, sanction regimes that have been in place for nearly two decades.

CAR’s findings highlight once again how critical field documentation and monitoring is to the effectiveness of any export control and sanction mechanism. CAR’s findings also demonstrate the challenges associated with effective regulation and control of the export of commercial semiconductor components. This is a recurrent theme, as seen in previous documentation by CAR of large quantities of recently produced commercial components in  Russian  and  Iranian  weapons used in Ukraine. The presence of these components also illustrates just how reliant Iran, North Korea, and the Russian Federation are on non-domestic technology for the sustained production of their war materiel.

The presence of a large proportion of recently produced non-domestic electronic components in a North Korean ballistic missile strongly suggests that the country has developed a robust acquisition network capable of circumventing, without detection, sanction regimes that have been in place for nearly two decades

While the vast majority of the documented components bear the brands of companies headquartered in Western jurisdictions, the global nature of the semiconductor industry and its reliance on third-country distribution channels should also raise concerns for the export control and sanctions compliance of other Member States bound to implement these regimes.

CAR will continue to document evidence of the use of North Korean ballistic missiles and will report further on any new findings regarding arms and related materiel recovered in Ukraine.

Favourite or share this Dispatch:  https://conflictarm.org/NorthKoreanMissileComponents 

Further resources

•   Ukraine iTrace Resource Centre   : Explore the weapons and ammunition data documented by CAR in Ukraine and read interactive case studies from our field reporting.    Access the Resource Centre   .

•  Documenting a North Korean missile in Ukraine : CAR investigators document a North Korean ballistic missile that struck Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city.

About Conflict Armament Research

Established in 2011, Conflict Armament Research generates unique evidence on weapon supplies into armed conflicts in order to inform and support effective weapon management and control.

CAR field investigation teams document illicit weapons, ammunition, and related materiel in conflict-affected locations and trace their supply sources. The teams inspect weapons in a variety of situations—whether recovered by state security forces, surrendered at the cessation of hostilities, cached, or held by insurgent forces. They document all items photographically, date and geo-reference the documentation sites, and incorporate contextual interview data gathered from the forces in control of the items at the time of documentation.

CAR occasionally uses information and photographs from social media as background information but does not base its investigations on them, since the provenance of such data is often difficult to verify. Moreover, open-source information does not always provide the detailed physical elements—notably external and internal markings required to trace weapons and ammunition.

For more information on CAR's methodology, go to www.conflictarm.com