Kyiv announced today that Russia carried out airstrikes against Ukraine using North Korean missiles, as the United States of America (USA) announced a day earlier.
“There is no longer any cover-up. As part of its open genocidal war, the Russian Federation has for the first time struck the territory of Ukraine with missiles it received from North Korea,” wrote the adviser to the Ukrainian president Mihail Podolyak on the X social network.
A few hours earlier, Kharkiv Governor Oleh Sinyehubov said that the remains of missiles found in the eastern Ukrainian region showed that they were not produced by Russia.
“We are conducting all the necessary investigations. I will say in advance that the markings have been erased from these missiles, but what we can see is that the country of manufacture is not the Russian Federation,” he said, as reported by Ukrainian public service Suspilna.
On Thursday, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Russia used ballistic missiles supplied by North Korea in a series of attacks on Ukraine over the New Year holiday.
According to him, the transfer of ballistic missile launchers and “several” missiles from North Korea to Russia happened “recently”.
Neither Russian nor North Korean officials have yet commented on the claims.