A video of the successful drone attack on the North Korean M-1978 Koksan self-propelled howitzer in the Donetsk front sector was posted by the Ukrainian 413th Separate Unmanned Systems Regiment on Telegram on March 25.
This is the fifth North Korean artillery system to be disabled in the past month.
The first confirmed destruction of a Koksan system was seen in a video posted by the Ukrainian military’s Khortytsia Operational Command on Feb. 18.
Since Russia’s full-scale aggression against Ukraine in Feb. 24, 2022, Ukrainian forces have destroyed over 25,000 enemy artillery systems.
Due to a shortage of cannon artillery, the Russian army has increasingly relied on Koksans, which were first spotted in Russia last November.
The Financial Times, citing Ukrainian intelligence, reported that Pyongyang has supplied Russia with some 50 Koksan artillery units and 20 multiple launch rocket systems, some of which have been deployed in Kursk Oblast.
The M-1989 Koksan is a 170mm self-propelled artillery unit similar to the Soviet-era 2S7 Pion and 2S7M Malka large-caliber systems. It has a range of up to 40 km, which can be extended to 60 km with rocket-assisted projectiles.
The M-1989 is an upgraded version of the M1979 developed in the late 1970s and supplied to Iran during the Iran-Iraq war.