SEOUL, July 4 (Yonhap) -- The following is a summary of external news on North Korea this week.
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Russia training N. Korean drone pilots in Pyongyang, Wonsan: Ukrainian official
SEOUL -- North Korea has established drone production with Russia's help, and Russian instructors are also training drone pilots in Pyongyang and the eastern city of Wonsan, a Russian official's Telegram showed Thursday.
"As I said back in the autumn ... the production of Shahed-Geran drones in North Korea has already been established with Russia's help," Andriy Kovalenko, head of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council's Center for Countering Disinformation, said in a Telegram post uploaded the previous day.
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N. Korea already using Russia's Pantsir-S1 air-defense system: report
SEOUL -- North Korea has already been using the Pantsir-S1 air defense system provided by Russia to defend the North's capital of Pyongyang, a Ukrainian online newspaper reported Wednesday, citing Kyiv's intelligence chief.
Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine's military intelligence (HUR), made the remark in an interview with Hromadske Radio the previous day (local time), according to The Kyiv Independent.
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U.S. seeks to arrest 4 N. Koreans for posing as IT workers to steal company money
SEOUL -- U.S. federal investigators seek to arrest four North Koreans over their alleged involvement in a scheme to steal virtual currency by posing as remote IT workers, the website of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) showed Wednesday.
The four men -- Kim Kwang-jin, Kang Tae-bok, Jong Pong-ju, and Chang Nam-il -- are wanted for allegedly stealing over $900,000 worth of virtual currency from two companies and laundering the proceeds of those thefts in 2022, according to an FBI notice.
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France freezes assets of N. Korean diplomat posted in Paris, citing UN sanctions
SEOUL -- The French government has frozen the assets of a North Korean diplomat based in Paris and also imposed economic sanctions against his two suspected family members, citing United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions, documents showed Monday.
France's Ministry of Economy and Finance froze all the assets owned or controlled by Kim Chol-yong, a North Korean counselor based in Paris, and prohibited both direct and indirect funding or economic support for entities and individuals under his control following an order by the minister on April 30.
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