North Korea’s Primary Tactical Missile Demonstrates Improved Precision Strike Capability in the Ukrainian Theatre
Asia-Pacific , Missile and Space
Multiple Ukrainian sources have reported that the North Korean KN-23 tactical ballistic missile, otherwise known as the Hwasong-11A, has achieved a new improved level of accuracy with a Circular Error Probable of 1–5 meters. The missile has been used extensively in the Russian-Ukrainian War, as first confirmed in January 2024, supplementing Russia’s domestically developed Iskander-M ballistic missile system. Improvements to precision strike capabilities may be the result of both feedback from combat testing and technological advances in North Korea, with funding from exports to Russia having provided a considerable boost to the country’s defence sector.
The KN-23 has many significant similarities to the Iskander-M, raising the possibility that its development may have benefitted from technology transfers or other forms of Russian support. The North Korean program is considered more successful than its Russian counterpart, having produced a much wider range of variants, and having seen the missiles deployed from a much more diverse range of launch vehicles. Commenting on the KN-23’s capabilities, a U.S. Congressional Research Service report highlighted shortly after the system’s entry into service that it “exemplifies the most notable advance” for North Korea in the field of tactical weapons, with the missile observed conducting a complex “pull-up” manoeuvres intended to confuse enemy air defence systems. Regarding the missile’s lighter counterpart, the KN-24, the report noted that the lighter missile “demonstrates the guidance system and in-flight manoeuvrability to achieve precision strikes.”
In October 2025 North Korea’s defence sector unveiled a successor to the KN-23, which uses a lift-generating hypersonic glide body and small control surfaces, and appears to be the system of its kind ever to integrate a hypersonic glide vehicle. Designated the Hwasong-11Ma, the new system appears to use the same transporter-erector-launcher as the KN-23 and same lower section, while the upper section with a glide vehicle appears intended to separate near the top of the boost phase. Russia has yet to unveil a comparably complex tactical missile type. While the KN-23’s ability to evade detection by South Korea’s U.S.-supplied AEGIS missile defence systems have been highlighted as cause for serious concern in Seoul and in the wider Western world, the capabilities of variants with hypersonic glide vehicles are expected to be considerably more formidable still in this regard.
Among the variants of the KN-23 developed, the KN-23B represents a larger variant with an extended range a much enlarged 2,500 kilogram warhead. It was first test fired on March 25, 2021, and due to its larger size used a ten-wheel transporter erector launcher where the original KN-23 used an eight-wheel launcher. The missile’s longer range and larger warhead are thought to have made it highly prized in the Ukrainian theatre. In part as a result of the sharp contraction both of Russia’s defence sector and of its ground forces in the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s disintegration, Russian forces have become heavily reliant on procuring defence equipment from North Korea. The results of an investigation by Reuters published in April 2025, for example, highlighted that many Russian artillery units had come to rely almost entirely on ammunition supplied by North Korea, with at least six Russian artillery units sourcing between 50 and 100 percent of their munitions from the country.
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