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| South Korea Deployed F-35 Fighter to Counter South Korean Mig-29 Fighter Provocations |
Seoul - On October 14, 2022, it was discovered that ten North Korean fighter jets were flying near the border with South Korea and it was claimed that these fighter jets were MiG-29 fleet troops. South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff told Yonhap that the 10 fighter jets had been detected flying 25 km north of the border on Thursday (13/10) at 22.30, then Friday at 0.20 local time.
Reportedly, the North Korean jet flew so close that it touched a 'monitoring line' set up by South Korea. The automatic response system turns on. South Korea then sent a number of its F-35A Lightning ll fighter jets, to drive the North Korean jet fleet away from the border.
In a statement, North Korea's military said its actions were in response to South Korea's provocative artillery drills near the border. Telling the story of the frontline fighter jets of the Korean People's Air and Anti-Air Force (KPAAF), it is far behind compared to the Republic of Korea Air Force (RoKAF), which is its rival.
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Currently the RoKAF operates a large number of Boeing F-15K and Lockheed Martin F-16C/D 4th generation fighters as well as Lockheed Martin F-35A 5th generation jets. While the KPAAF still relies on 4th generation fighter jets, which are classified as old, namely the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-29 which was supplied since the Soviet Union was still standing.
The jet, nicknamed the Fulcrum, was acquired after North Korean leader Kim Il Sung's visit to the Soviet Union in October 1986, in which Moscow agreed to supply a dozen MiG-29 fighter jets, including MiG-23 and Su-25 attack jets. It didn't stop there, North Korea also continued to try to enlarge its fleet by obtaining permission and technological assistance from the Soviet Union to produce it under license.
Finally given the go-ahead in 1987, North Korea opened small production lines in Kwagsan and Taechun in North Pyongan province in the country's northwest. The first MiG-29 produced by North Korea underwent its first flight on April 15, 1993. It is suspected that until the late 1990s around 15 fighter jets had been produced.
Remarkably the North Korean version of the MiG-29 is reportedly comparable in performance to that made by the Soviet Union (hereinafter Russia) or more sophisticated than the export variants marketed such as to Iraq and Iran. However, the core components of the MiG-29 are still imported directly from Russia, such as the gas-fired engine, sensor system and advanced avionics equipment.
Not only that, Russia has reportedly also provided North Korea with advanced variants of the R-77 and R-27 long-range air-to-air missiles as air combat weapons for the MiG-29 KPAAF. However, due to North Korea's secretive nature, it is not known exactly how many Fulcrums the KPAAF currently owns.