A spokesman for the General Staff of the Korean People's Army made public a press statement "The Republic of Korea should be ready to pay a high price for having committed another provocation of infringing on the sovereignty of the DPRK with drone" on January 9.

The following is the full text of the statement:

The Republic of Korea, a group of hooligans who stunned the world by causing an incident in which their drone violated the sky over Pyongyang in October 2024, committed another grave infringement upon the sovereignty of the DPRK by making its drone violate the DPRK's airspace from the outset of the year.

On January 4, the Korean People's Army sub-units on duty for border air surveillance captured and tracked an air target moving northward from the sky over the area of Hado-ri, Songhae-myon, Kanghwa County of Inchon City. They tactically allowed it to fly 8 km away over the DPRK's airspace and struck it with special electronic warfare assets and forced it to fall into a place 1 200 metres away from Height 101.5 in Muksan-ri, Kaephung District of Kaesong Municipality.

The crashed drone was equipped with surveillance devices.

Relevant intelligence and specialized investigation organs took away the remains of the fallen drone to analyze its flight plan, flight history and recorded photos.

According to the analysis result, the drone, which took off in an area of Kanghwa County, Inchon City of the ROK, at around 12:50 on January 4, was set to record by camera the DPRK's major objects while flying a total distance of 156 km at a height of 100-300 metres at the speed of 50 km an hour for three hours and ten minutes, entering Kaephung District of Kaesong Municipality and the areas of Phyongsan and Kumchon counties of North Hwanghae Province in the DPRK's territory and then returning to Joksong-myon, Phaju City, Kyonggi Province of the ROK, via Kaephung and Phanmun districts and Jangphung County, Kaesong Municipality.

Recorded in the two cameras of the drone before its crash were videos of the DPRK's areas amounting to 6 minutes 59 seconds and 6 minutes 58 seconds.

The relevant video data are a clear proof that the drone violated the airspace of the DPRK for surveillance and reconnaissance of its area.

Even after the change of the former regime of hooligans in Seoul, the ROK has continued to commit such acts of provocation by drones near the border.

Availing ourselves of this opportunity, we cannot but mention the fact that the ROK committed a provocative act of conducting surveillance and reconnaissance of our major objects by flying a drone into the airspace of the DPRK in September last year.

The enemy's drone, which took off in the area of Joksong-myon, Phaju City, Kyonggi Province of the ROK, at around 11:15 on September 27 last year, was dropped by the electronic strike by the special military technology means of our 2nd Corps into a paddy field in the area of Sasi-ri, Jangphung County, Kaesong Municipality, at around 14:25 while returning via Kaesong Municipality after infiltrating into the sky above Phyongsan County, North Hwanghae Province of the DPRK.

According to the analysis of its input flight plan and recorded flight history, this drone took off at Jangjwa-ri, Joksong-myon, Phaju City, Kyonggi Province, and it was set to record by camera our side's major objects, including some in Phyongsan County of North Hwanghae Province, Mt Janam in Kaesong Municipality, Panmunjom, former Kaesong Industrial Zone and military posts near the border line, while flying a total distance of 167 km at an altitude of 300 metres at the speed of 50 km an hour for three hours and twenty minutes in the sky over Kaephung District of Kaesong Municipality, Phyongsan County of North Hwanghae Province and then Kaephung and Phanmun districts of Kaesong Municipality in the DPRK's territory before returning to its base.

Like the recently crashed drone, the then fallen drone was a small fixed-wing drone, a clearly surveillance and reconnaissance mean capable of flying at a height of less than 500 metres for six hours at maximum and of capturing ground objects with a high-resolution optical camera tipped at the bottom of its body.

The communication and navigation mode applied to it, the flight plan input into it, the flight history and video data recorded in it, etc. go to prove that the drone conducted an air reconnaissance and was specially made for it.

Recorded in the camera of the then drone was 5-hour-and-47-minute video data on major objects of our region.

Those drones freely passed through the sky over the area, where the ROK army has intensively deployed various radars for detecting low-altitude targets and anti-drone equipment, after making a daytime takeoff at a sensitive frontline area of the ROK where civilian access is strictly prohibited. The fact makes it easy to guess who is behind the drones' infiltration.

Though it says in public that "it is necessary to drill even a hole as small as a needle point" in order to communicate with the DPRK, the ROK does not stop committing a provocative act against it. This has helped us once again have hostility towards the real nature of the ROK.

Our stand is clear.

The ROK is the enemy most hostile towards us that can never be changed in nature, and the object to be certainly collapsed by us if it attacks.

It is a perfect copy of Kiev's lunatics.

The international community should clearly understand what is the root cause of escalating tension on the Korean peninsula and the danger of armed conflict.

We strongly denounce the hooligans' serial outrageous encroachment upon our sovereignty and undisguised provocative acts against us and seriously warn the ROK authorities who revealed once again their black-hearted intention to have a showdown with us.

They should immediately stop an act of inviting their destruction.

The ROK military warmongers will be surely forced to pay a dear price for their unpardonable hysteria.

The ROK authorities can never evade the responsibility for escalating tension.

KCNA