Japan's Kyodo News said the Ukrainian government has reportedly identified the North Korean short-range ballistic missile fired into its territory by Russia on January 2 as a KN-23.

Citing a Ukrainian official, the news agency said on Friday that it is the first time that a North Korean missile used in the war has been specified as the KN-23, a projectile similar to Russia's Iskander missiles.

Authorities in Ukraine collected debris from the missile found in the country's second-largest city of Kharkiv for analysis by a defense ministry research institute in the capital Kyiv.

A comparison between the debris and images of the KN-23 in a video of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un making a visit to a missile facility showed that a number of the parts from the debris had the same shape.

Military authorities from South Korea and the U.S. have assessed that Russia has used KN-23 missiles provided by the North.

[Photo : KBS News]