North Korea’s New Heavy Stealth Drone Poised to Transform its Air Combat Capabilities

North Korea has unveiled a previously unseen stealth unmanned combat aircraft at its Unmanned Aerial Technology Development-2026 exhibition, alongside the much lighter Saetbyol-9, which resembles the U.S. MQ-9 Reaper, and the Morning Saetbyol-4, which is a much larger and longer range surveillance platform. The appearance of the new flying-wing design suggests that Pyongyang is pursuing a broader range of unmanned platforms. The chairman of the ruling Korean Workers’ Party Kim Jong Un attended the exhibition and inspected a large number of first-person-view (FPV) drones, which have become prominent in the Russia-Ukraine conflict and Israeli-Hezbollah hostilities because of their relatively low cost and ability to strike personnel, vehicles and fortified positions. North Korea has had opportunities to study the extensive use of unmanned systems in the Ukrainian theatre through its military cooperation with Russia. 

The fielding of advanced stealth drones has the potential to have a transformative impact on North Korean aerial warfare capabilities, as the large majority of the country’s combat fleet is left increasingly obsolete. Such aircraft have significantly lower sustainment costs than even relatively lightweight manned fighters due to the much lower costs of personnel training. Unmanned stealth drones have proven highly survivable on penetration missions into heavily defended airspace in the Middle East, with the North Korean aircraft expected to integrate a wide range of guided bombs and cruise missiles. It is likely that advances in artificial intelligence, sensor and targeting capabilities will eventually allow these aircraft to engage in air-to-air operations as well. 

North Korean state media reported that the exhibition included demonstrations involving single use attack drones and multipurpose unmanned aircraft, alongside other weapons systems. Chairman Kim called for North Korea to achieve “absolute superiority” in drone technology, describing unmanned aviation as essential to adapting the armed forces to the changing character of modern warfare. The event also featured a public demonstration of the country’s 600mm rocket artillery system, namely the KN-25 which is the longest ranged system of its kind in the world, indicating that the exhibition was intended to showcase broader conventional weapons development alongside unmanned systems. It is possible that the KN-25 used guidance from surveillance drones, which would have tied its appearance with the broader theme of the exhibition.