Seoul, 29 December 2022 (TDI): On Monday, reportedly South Korea sent drones across the border into North Korea for the first time. This was an unprecedented tit-for-tat military move.
It comes after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s regime dispatched five unmanned aerial vehicles into its airspace as Kim opened a major political meeting to set security, economic and political policy for the coming year.
Statement by Joint Chief of Staff
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said, “The first drone crossed the border at 10:25 AM and returned after flying for about three hours. Four more were detected and later vanished from radar”.
Moreover, the military of South Korea responded by scrambling fighter jets as well as military helicopters.
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Additionally, Joint Chiefs of Staff stated that South Korea later deployed manned and unmanned reconnaissance assets to areas close to the border and into North Korea that conducted reconnaissance and photographed military facilities.
The South Korean President, Yoon Suk Yeol said the incursion showed the need for its country to bolster its defenses.
At a cabinet meeting, Yoon underlined, “We were planning to establish a drone unit for surveillance on North Korea’s major military facilities.
But with what happened yesterday as an opportunity, we will expedite the establishment of the drone unit as much as possible”.
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Furthermore, the moves increase the risks of the first major deadly clash in years. In 2010, North Korea bombarded the South Korean border island of Yeonpyeong with artillery.
Kim Jong Un has fired off a record 70 ballistic missiles this year as he has been modernizing his inventory to make the weapons easier to hide, quicker to deploy, and more difficult to shoot down.
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However, it is pertinent to note that South Korea has said that it is expecting Kim to test a nuclear bomb in the near future.
