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Defense Ministry to suspend budget of drone command over underperforming drones

Published: 03 Mar. 2026, 19:56

National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-shik operates a drone during a visit to the 108th Mechanized Infantry Battalion of the 11th Maneuver Division in Yangpyeong County, Gyeonggi, on Dec. 26, 2025. [YONHAP]

The Ministry of National Defense said on Tuesday that it will tentatively suspend the Drone Operations Command's budget over a move to introduce more drones of the model that infiltrated North Korean airspace under former President Yoon Suk Yeol in 2024, citing poor performance.

The move comes as the command has allocated 1.34 billion won ($915,500) to introduce 24 additional small reconnaissance drones this year, despite concerns over capabilities, according to a report submitted to Rep. Boo Seung-chan of the Democratic Party.

The concerns over the model, manufactured by the state-run Agency for Defense Development in 2023, involve the potential risk of easy detection by enemy radar and the noise generated during flight.

The drone command claimed that the model had met the standards required for launch at the time, noting that the budget for the project was prearranged based on a midterm defense blueprint.

Speculation had arisen that the command deliberately used the underperforming drones in operations in October 2024 in a bid to facilitate detection by North Korea and provoke Pyongyang into retaliating, offering Yoon a pretext for his Dec. 3 martial law declaration that year.

Following the revelations, the Defense Ministry said it will temporarily suspend the budget for the command.

"We plan to review the necessity of the project and reallocate the assigned budget to operational units carrying out the missions, once the command's mission and function undergo adjustments," Chung Bin-na, the ministry's spokesperson, said during a press briefing.

A special advisory committee tasked with reforming the military called on the Defense Ministry to abolish the drone operations command last month, in light of a brief that overlaps with other military branches.

Yonhap