An online media outlet run by a U.S. think tank has suggested that North Korea's solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile(ICBM) technology may have derived from Russia.

In a report on Thursday, Beyond Parallel under the Center for Strategic and International Studies(CSIS) raised the possibility while comparing the external characteristics and the performance of the two countries' respective ICBMs.

Theodore Postol, who made the analysis, claimed that the size and flight trajectory of Russia's multi-warhead ICBM, the Topol-M, and North Korea's recently test-fired Hwasong-18 were nearly identical.

Postol, currently advisor to the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations, said that such an advanced ICBM could not possibly have been developed by the North without full support and cooperation from Russia.

He then said the transfer of the Topol-M or related technologies would be a violation of an unwritten international protocol by Moscow not to provide nuclear strike capabilities to states that potentially pose a significant security threat to other nations.