Russian forces are using small drones armed with North Korean cluster munitions in attacks in southern Ukraine, as North Korea expands its support for Russia’s military, according to a report published on Thursday by a weapons research group.
Independent investigators who visited Ukraine last week examined a previously unknown type of North Korean cluster munition that was fitted to a Russian drone found near the city of Kherson on Sept. 23.
Cluster munitions are a class of military ordnance that break apart in midair and scatter smaller explosive or incendiary weapons, often called bomblets, over a large area.
North Korea has supplied Russia with soldiers, artillery shells and ballistic missiles, but the use of North Korean bomblets as warheads in small Russian drones has not previously been reported.
The investigators said the bomblet had been heavily modified and attached to a “first-person-view drone.” That type of drone relays a video feed that enables a soldier to more easily direct it to a target.
The report was published by Conflict Armament Research, an independent group based in Britain that identifies and tracks weapons and ammunition used in wars. Ukrainian government authorities have invited the researchers to the country throughout the war to analyze and document Russian military hardware.
The group has found that even the most advanced Russian munitions rely on low-tech parts made by Western firms that have been smuggled into the country despite international sanctions.
The report comes as President Trump has said he may send U.S.-made Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine to press Russia to negotiate an end to its three-and-a-half-year war. He is expected to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine at the White House on Friday to discuss possible Tomahawk sales, which would give Kyiv the ability to launch salvos of missiles into Moscow.
Markings on the North Korean bomblet show that it was made in 2000. It was retrofitted with 3-D-printed parts holding an electronic detonator that would explode when the drone impacted its target.
According to Damien Spleeters, one of the group’s researchers who documented the modified warhead, the North Korean bomblet appears to be a copy of an American munition first used in combat during the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
That weapon, called the M42 Dual-Purpose Improved Conventional Munition, is roughly the size of a D-cell battery. They were packed into shells and rockets that U.S. artillery troops used to blanket suspected Iraqi Army positions, dispensing nearly 14 million of the bomblets on enemy forces during the 37-day war.
The M42 has largely been restricted from use by American forces because of its high failure rate and the hazard unexploded bomblets present to friendly forces as well as civilians in post-conflict areas.
Regardless, the Biden administration agreed to send 155-millimenter artillery shells containing M42-type submunitions to Ukraine in July 2023. At the time, the Pentagon called them “highly effective and reliable” and said it had consulted with Congress and allied nations before sending them.
The modifications seen to the previously unknown North Korean bomblet, which some Ukrainian officials have called the JU-90, required careful preparation.
“The 3-D printed parts designed and built specifically for this munition speak to a more sophisticated effort,” Mr. Spleeters said. “It’s a more systematic kind of improvisation.”
The discovery, his team wrote, “establishes yet another direct material link between the North Korean defense industry and the war in Ukraine.”
Russia produces the fuselage of some first-person-view drones, but most if not all of their other components are made in China, Mr. Spleeters said.
John Ismay is a reporter covering the Pentagon for The Times. He served as an explosive ordnance disposal officer in the U.S. Navy.
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