Pyongyang is said to be able to supply Moscow with the KN-25 missile system, which is considered a counterweight to HIMARS in ukraine russian conflict.
According to News Week, a recently declassified US intelligence document has revealed that Russia is ordering a series of missiles from North Korea. This information was later denied by Russia’s Ambassador to the United Nations Vassily Nebenzia, but US defense officials believe that cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow is still underway.
Currently, there are no specific details about this deal. However, US officials say millions of shells and short-range missiles are among the items Moscow could buy from Pyongyang. Besides, it is not excluded that Russia will buy North Korean heavy weapons systems in the future, typically the KN-25.
The KN-25 is a 600mm multiple launch rocket system, first introduced in 2019. North Korea’s large artillery system has two variants, mounted on an 8x wheeled off-road truck chassis. 8, or tracked armored vehicle. In the tracked vehicle variant, the launcher carries 6 missiles, and for the wheeled cross-country truck, the number of missiles is reduced to 4.
During the tests, the missile launched from the KN-25 traveled 380km, with a ceiling of 97km. This is an impressive number compared to the 300km range of HIMARS. In addition, although it is called a rocket launcher, it is easy to see that the size of the missile used on the KN-25 is close to that of a short-range tactical ballistic missile. Regarding the navigation system, KN-25 uses a UAV or Chinese BeiDou satellite
In theory, both the range and damage of the KN-25 are superior to HIMARS. However, with a weapon that does not have much combat history, the North Korean missile system will still have to be tested to see if it really outperforms US products.
