N Korea ‘to deploy new multiple rocket launcher’

North Korea plans to equip its military with a new 240mm multiple rocket launcher starting this year, state media said yesterday, adding a “significant change” in the army’s artillery combat capabilities was under way.

North Korean leader Kim Jongun on Friday oversaw a live-fire test of the “technically updated” rocket system, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

The announcement came as analysts say the nuclear-armed North could be testing and ramping up production of artillery and cruise missiles before sending them to Russia for use in Ukraine. Pyongyang in February said it had developed a new control system for its 240mm multiple rocket launcher that would lead to a “qualitative change” in its defense capabilities, and last month testfired new shells.

The updated rocket launcher would be “deployed to units of the Korean People’s Army as replacement equipment from 2024 to 2026,” KCNA said.

The South Korean Ministry of National Defense said it could not confirm the Friday test launches.

Pyongyang said eight shells had “hit point target to intensively prove the advantage and destructive power of the updated 240mm multiple rocket launcher system.”

Images released by state media showed Kim conversing with military officials during an inspection of the launcher, as well as what appeared to be the live-fire test of the system.

The tests also proved the power of the “controllable shells for [the] multiple rocket launcher,” KCNA said.

Kim discussed ways to raise production of the new rocket launcher system and shells to “the highest level,” it said, adding that a “significant change will be soon made in increasing the artillery combat ability of our army,” without providing details.

While escalating its military threats toward South Korea, the North is “also signaling its intentions to participate in weapons exports and other defense-related economic activities via ongoing technical advancements,” said Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.

In the context of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, Pyongyang has “indirectly verified the performance of its existing weapons” by supplying them to Russia, he said.