KN-30

North Korea's heavyweight Hwasong-11 — a solid-fuel ballistic missile more than ten metres long, claimed to carry a warhead of up to 2.5 tonnes, roughly five times what an Iskander-M delivers. Ukraine's intelligence service confirmed its transfer to Russia in August 2026, and launchers were subsequently reported near the border.

Overview

The KN-30 is the United States designation for North Korea's Hwasong-11C (also rendered Hwasong-11Da), the enlarged member of the Hwasong-11 short-range ballistic missile family that also contains the KN-23 (Hwasong-11A) and KN-24 (Hwasong-11B). It is a single-stage, solid-fuel missile launched from a mobile ground transporter-erector-launcher, and its defining characteristic is size: at 10.1–10.2 m long and 1.26 m in diameter it is substantially larger than the KN-23, and North Korea claims a payload capacity of up to 2,500 kg.

Its significance for the Ukraine war is what that payload would mean if the claim holds. An Iskander-M delivers roughly 480–700 kg. A missile carrying five times that at 600–900 km range would give Russia a conventional strike option it does not currently produce domestically, at a moment when Russian planners are explicitly reprioritising toward systems that penetrate Ukrainian air defence and hit accurately.

Two caveats govern this entry. The 2,500 kg payload figure is a North Korean claim that has not been independently verified. And the missile's accuracy is genuinely disputed in open sources, with published estimates ranging from single-digit metres to a probable error of 50–100 m — a spread wide enough to determine whether the system is a precision weapon or an area one.

🔒 The full KN-30 file is for BattlePolicy Pro members. Below the line: development history, design and capabilities, variants, the combat record, advantages and limitations, comparable systems, outlook, the full specifications table, our sourcing, and the analyst assessment — procurement, suppliers and the BattlePolicy verdict. Unlock the full file with BattlePolicy Pro →