How Pyongyang’s claim of South Korean drone incursion threatens Lee’s ambitions

[EXPLAINER]

The Korean Peninsula has been gripped by a sensitive drone controversy over the past two weeks: What began as an angry claim from Pyongyang has spiraled into challenges for South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, straining his attempt to revive a fragile peace initiative with the North.

North Korea claimed on Jan. 10 that it had shot down South Korean drones near Kaesong on two different occasions, releasing photos and footage of alleged debris and flight route.

“This drone incident may give the North yet another excuse to say, ‘The Lee government cannot be trusted either,’” the president said at a New Year’s press conference on Wednesday. “That’s precisely why we must treat this as a grave matter and respond with a thorough investigation and proper countermeasures.”

The drone infiltrations come as South Korea is already grappling with the fallout from the ongoing trial of former president Yoon Suk Yeol over his alleged martial law plot that included covert drone operations over Pyongyang.

Analysts say the North’s claims appear to be aimed less at the drones themselves than at seizing narrative control, putting pressure on Seoul’s defense posture and reinforcing its longstanding portrayal of South Korea as an irredeemably hostile state.

What does Pyongyang claim?

North Korea, via a statement from the Korean People’s Army spokesperson on Jan. 10, alleged that unmanned South Korean aerial vehicles (UAVs) infiltrated its airspace once in September 2025 and again on Jan. 4 this year, adding that their forces used electronic warfare to down the drones near the border city of Kaesong.

In subsequent statements, Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong-un responsible for inter-Korean affairs and U.S. relations, demanded that Seoul apologize for the alleged drone intrusions and threatened dire consequences.

South Korea’s government moved quickly to rebut the North’s claims and contain the fallout.

On the same day the statement was publicized, Lee convened an emergency meeting and ordered an investigation by a joint military-police task force.

Seoul’s military denied flying any drones over North Korea on the dates in question, noting that it does not operate the drone models in question shown in the North’s photos. Defense officials also insisted Seoul has “no intention to provoke or incite” Pyongyang at such a sensitive time.

Who sent the drones, and why?

On Jan. 16, the task force team summoned a suspect, identified only by the surname Jang, for questioning.

Investigators say Jang had already been referred to prosecutors in November 2025 for flying an unregistered drone in the city of Yeoju, south of Seoul, in violation of aviation safety laws.

The investigation took a dramatic turn the same day, when another man in his 30s surnamed Oh came forward in a media interview claiming responsibility for flying drones into North Korea.

Oh said Jang — alumni of the same university — had merely assembled the aircraft, while he personally piloted drones across the border on three occasions since September.

Oh claimed he flew the drones to measure radiation and heavy-metal contamination near a uranium facility in Pyongsan County along the Ryesong River in North Korea, the site named in reports that North Korea may have discharged wastewater from the facility, while the South Korean government conducted its own review and announced there was no meaningful change in radioactive levels in the Yellow Sea.

What initially appeared to be the actions of private engineering enthusiasts soon took on a more politically sensitive dimension.

Jang and Oh were later found to have worked around the same period at the presidential office under former President Yoon Suk Yeol, where they were involved in news-monitoring duties. The two were also active together in conservative-leaning youth groups.

In 2023, the pair co-founded a drone startup with support from their university. Oh served as a director, while Jang was listed as the company’s chief executive.

A third individual, surnamed Kim, who reportedly held the title of “executive in charge of North Korea operations” at the firm, has also come under scrutiny.

On Wednesday, the task force raided the homes and offices of all three individuals.

“All possibilities are being explored,” a task force official said, adding that the individuals involved may face charges under aviation safety and national security laws.

The drone incident intersects with the ongoing trial of former President Yoon.

Lee’s conservative predecessor is accused of attempting a “self-coup” through the declaration of martial law on Dec. 3, 2024, that involved drones deployed to North Korea.

Yoon and several former senior aides are currently on trial over allegations that, from October 2024, they ordered drone operations over Pyongyang in an attempt to provoke North Korea, heighten military tensions and manufacture justification for imposing emergency rule.

With the latest incident, Lee has openly questioned “how civilians could even imagine” sending drones over to gather intelligence and said “allegations that a state agency was involved” were not unreasonable.

He has likened an unauthorized drone flight into the North to “shooting a bullet” at Pyongyang — “practically an act of war.”

Further complicating the picture is the suspects’ backgrounds — with at least two of them having worked as contract staff at the presidential office during the Yoon administration, positions generally attainable through recommendations.

The timing of subsequent developments has also drawn scrutiny.

After leaving the presidential office in early 2023, the suspects went on to establish the drone manufacturing startup on Sept. 22, 2023 — just weeks after the government launched the Drone Operations Command on Sept. 1, 2023.

While authorities have yet to confirm a direct link, the probe entered a new phase after allegations emerged that one suspect had financial ties to the Defense Intelligence Command (DIC).

Democratic Party Rep. Park Sun-won claimed that suspect Oh had received over 10 million won ($6,800) in funds from a DIC officer and was treated as a cooperative asset in efforts to launch two online outlets focused on North Korean affairs.

Oh is currently enrolled in a graduate journalism program at a university in Seoul and is reported to have received a letter of recommendation from another senior official linked to the presidential office.

Rep. Park suggested that the drone operations may have been deliberately designed to be detected.

“By making it appear that what happened under Yoon could also occur under Lee, they are throwing the situation into confusion and shielding Yoon,” he claimed in a radio program.

The question of how a small civilian drone managed to evade one of the world’s most heavily fortified borders — not once, but three times — without detection prompted concerns in Seoul about potential blind spots in the South’s air defenses.

Lee has since publicly criticized the military, asking Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back how drones could “go back and forth several times” despite advances in surveillance and military technology, calling it evidence of “a hole in the monitoring network.”

He ordered improvements to facilities and equipment if necessary, while also warning that unnecessarily inflaming inter-Korean tensions could harm the economy and undermine the fragile trust between the two Koreas.

In late 2022, under the Yoon administration, South Korea was caught off guard when a North Korean drone reached the airspace over Seoul and roamed freely for over seven hours.

That scare led the previous government to create the drone in 2023 to bolster antidrone defenses.

South Korea’s military has long monitored the demilitarized zone for infiltrators, but its systems — optimized for larger aircraft or missiles — may struggle to pick up a tiny, low-flying drone. The military recently also acknowledged “technical limitations” in detecting such small, low-flying civilian drones with current radar and sensor setups.

Yang Uk, a research fellow at the Seoul-based Asan Institute for Policy Studies, said the failure to detect small drones should not be viewed as a uniquely South Korean shortcoming but as a structural challenge facing modern militaries.

“The question is not whether the limitation exists — it does — but whether sufficient effort was made to mitigate it,” he said.

Ironically, however, a defense ministry reform committee this week recommended dismantling the Drone Operations Command — a legacy of Yoon — citing redundancy and inefficiency.

Some worry that disbanding the unit could send the wrong signal, especially when militaries worldwide are ramping up drone programs after witnessing their game-changing role in modern warfare, such as the kind playing out between Russia and Ukraine.

Experts say North Korea’s handling of the drone affair appears to strive for maximum strategic effect, rather than a simple protest of an airspace violation.

Pyongyang waited six days after the alleged Jan. 4 shoot-down to make it public, then bundled that with news of a much earlier incursion that occurred in September.

While refusing to engage in any dialogue with Seoul since 2023, North Korea chose to publicize the allegations through the Rodong Sinmun, the ruling Workers’ Party newspaper, ensuring the claims reached its domestic audience. The message was clear: painting Seoul as a violator of its sovereignty regardless of a change in leadership in Seoul.

As Lee lamented, this incident handed Pyongyang “another excuse” to distrust even a dovish South Korean administration. Kim Yo-jong, the sister of leader Kim Jong-un and vice department director of the ruling party’s Central Committee, explicitly derided Seoul’s reconciliation hopes as a “wild dream.”

From Pyongyang’s perspective, Seoul is now on the defensive, scrambling to prove it didn’t send spy drones. That alone is a win for the North, which can say its hostile view of Seoul is vindicated.

Additionally, with the party’s ninth congress upcoming in late January or February, experts also believe the North could even move to enshrine Kim Jong-un’s hardline “two Koreas, two states” doctrine into the Party’s constitution.

“This reaffirms Pyongyang’s intent to uphold the hostile two-state doctrine and the immutability of inter-Korean relations,” said Yang Moo-jin, a distinguished professor at the University of North Korean Studies. “It pressures Seoul to acknowledge the drone incident, issue an apology and take measures to prevent recurrence — a three-pronged demand.”

BY SEO JI-EUN [seo.jieun1@joongang.co.kr]