South Korean president lambasts his own country's military over failure to destroy North Korean drones

In a major comment of flak about South Korea's ability to combat threats from North Korea, President Yoon Suk-Yeol said that Seoul's response on Monday against five North Korean drones showed a "substantial lack of military unpreparedness". President Yoon Suk-Yeol said that his administration would advance the creation of a military unit specialising in drones.

Five North Korean drones crossed into South Korea on Monday, following which Seoul scrambled fighter jets and attack helicopters. This was the first such intrusion since 2017, Reuters reported.

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On Monday, for about five hours, the North Korean drones flew over several South Korean cities including the capital Seoul. The South Korean defences fired warning shots but couldn't bring down any of Pyongyang's drones.

"The incident showed a substantial lack of our military’s preparedness and training for the past several years, and clearly confirmed the need for more intense readiness and training," Yoon is reported to have told a cabinet meeting.

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Yoon blamed the unpreparedness for his predecessor’s "dangerous" North Korea policy, which relied on Pyongyang’s "good intentions" and a 2018 inter-Korean military pact banning hostile activities in the border areas.

"We have been planning to establish a drone unit to monitor and reconnoitre major North Korean military facilities, and will now expedite the plan as much as possible," he added, vowing to boost its surveillance and reconnaissance capability with cutting-edge stealthy drones.

The South Korean military said it chased one of the five drones over the greater Seoul area, but could not aggressively attack it because of concerns over civilian safety.

"We operated detecting, tracking, and shooting assets but there were areas where there might be civilian damage,” an official at the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) told a briefing on Tuesday, December 27. “So there were difficulties in actually carrying out operations."

The incident was the latest airspace intrusion by unmanned aerial vehicles from North Korea.

In 2017, a North Korean drone that South Korean media said was on a spy mission crashed and was found on a mountain near the border. In 2014, a North Korean drone was discovered on a South Korean border island.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in past has publicly shown interest in drones. He also pledged at a meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party last year to develop new reconnaissance drones capable of flying up to 500 km (311 miles).

(With inputs from agencies)

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