North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has called for the development of more suicide drones to boost his regime’s war readiness.  

“It is necessary to develop and produce more suicide drones of various types to be used in tactical infantry and special operation units, as well as strategic reconnaissance and multi-purpose attack drones,” Kim was quoted as saying by state newswire KCNA.

His comments were made during a weekend visit to the Drone Institute of North Korea’s Academy of Defence Sciences, when the authoritarian leader watched as new “suicide drones” took off and destroyed designated targets including a mock tank after flying along preset routes.

Suicide drones should be used in tactical infantry and special operation units, such as underwater suicide attack drones, said Kim. He also urged researchers to develop artificial intelligence for unmanned vehicles.

Loitering munitions, which remain airborne preparing to strike until a specific target is located, before crashing into it with a warhead, have been widely used in conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.

Photos released by state media show Kim, dressed in a baggy all-white outfit and cap, inspecting blurred out drones while appearing to give instructions to senior officials. 

Local reports pointed to at least four different types of drones, some of which were launched with small rocket engines.

The development is likely to cause disquiet in neighbouring South Korea, which has recently been shown to be vulnerable to airspace incursions from the North.    

The two countries are still technically at war after the 1950-53 war that split the Korean Peninsula ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty, and North Korea has previously used small commercial drones to infiltrate the area in and around the South’s capital, Seoul.

In December 2022, five North Korean drones crossed into the South’s airspace, prompting the military to fire warning shots and deploy fighter jets, but none of the UAVs were destroyed.

On Monday, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said more analysis was needed to determine the similarities between the newly-unveiled drones and Russia’s ZALA Lancet and the Iranian-designed Shahed, reported Reuters.

Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, have recently pledged to step up military cooperation, and Pyongyang has been accused by the US and South Korea of supplying munitions for Moscow’s war machine in Ukraine in exchange for high-level technology.

“We understand that some gifts (drones) were given in an exchange between North Korea and Russia in the past…We need to analyse various measures to see if those have improved performance,” a JCS spokesperson said in a briefing.

Last month, South Korea’s National Defence Acquisition Programme Administration (DAPA) announced plans to deploy new “Star Wars” lasers to melt drones dispatched from the North out of the sky.

The new laser weapons, which would melt the surface of the drone causing its internal components to catch fire, would be in place by the end of the year, DAPA said.