The Smoking Gun: Made in Pyongyang, Modeled in Beijing, Assembled by a Guy Named Oleg

6 min readJun 15, 2025

“Because nothing says 21st-century superpower like blowing yourself up with communist yard-sale junk.”

The Boom That Said It All

So Russia’s biggest ammo dump went kaboom in April 2025. Not a tactical strike, not a stealth op — just spontaneous combustion from the gods of irony. The 51st GRAU depot in Barsovo didn’t just explode; it confessed. And what it confessed was, “We’re stocking North Korean rockets now.”

Yeah. North Korean. Let that sink in. The country that can’t keep the lights on and thinks denim is subversion is now the military Walmart for the Kremlin.

In the wreckage? Shards of 107mm rockets. Not Russian. Not Chinese. Nope. Pyongyang’s finest. A weapons system that screams, “We copied a 1960s Chinese design, and we did it drunk.”

The Ancestry of Garbage

Let’s break this down. The original was the Type 63 MLRS — twelve tubes of 107mm communist fury made by Mao’s tech support team in the 1960s. It could unload all rockets in under ten seconds, which is about how long the crew had before running away from their own backblast. Range? About eight kilometers — give or take the breeze and divine intervention. Warhead? Just enough to make things explode and lawyers nervous.

Now, North Korea looked at that and said, “Hey, we can make this worse!” Thus, the Type 75 was born — basically the Type 63 but strapped onto a rusting jeep that probably used to haul cabbages. Precision? Ha! Accuracy is for imperialists. The goal here is volume and vibes.

But wait, there’s more. Fast-forward to 2024, and Pyongyang rolls out the RSZO-107-E — same rocket, new war crime. They jammed in cluster munitions. Fifteen bomblets per rocket. Little surprise packages, like explosive Kinder eggs. Great for area denial. Terrible for children who find them six months later.

Because nothing says “we respect the laws of war” like a rocket that turns into fifteen more rockets.

Clusterbombs: The Illegal Gift That Keeps on Giving

These things are so banned, even Switzerland gave them the side-eye. But not Russia. Not North Korea. These two looked at a global ban on cluster munitions and said, “Pfft, optional.” Why follow treaties when you can throw shrapnel like rice at a mafia wedding?

So now Russia’s not only using these cluster-happy knockoffs, it’s storing them. Stockpiling them. Apparently next to open flames and nihilism. Because what’s risk management when you’ve already blown up your moral compass?

The Dictator-to-Dictator Express

How’s this twisted supply chain work? Simple. Since 2023, North Korea’s been shipping tens of thousands of rockets and artillery shells to Russia. In return, Russia’s tossing them scraps of missile tech, maybe some submarine blueprints, and probably a Spotify playlist titled “How to Suck Less at War.”

Over 20,000 containers worth of war junk have quietly rolled into Russia. Not aid. Not trade. Just a logistics orgy of authoritarian failure.

And it gets better: they’re now deploying 10,000 North Korean soldiers into Russian-occupied Ukraine as “trainees.” Trainees in what? How to duck? How to loot a microwave? The whole arrangement feels like a Cold War fanfiction crossover.

Welcome to the Communist Flea Market

Of course, the Type 75 is just one item in Russia’s cart of shame. They’ve been dipping into every dusty weapons catalog that Mao, Kim, or Uncle Ho ever sneezed on.

You’ve got the Type 81, a Grad clone with forty tubes of noise, smoke, and wishful thinking. Precision? Like throwing rocks with your eyes closed after three shots of vodka.

Then there’s the KN-09, North Korea’s idea of a modern rocket system. It’s got GPS. Probably from a knockoff Samsung phone. Accuracy? Somewhere between “maybe” and “miracle.”

And the Type 59 tank — oh, the tank! Built on the Soviet T-54, it moves like molasses and protects like tinfoil. But paint it green, march it down a Red Square, and voila! A propaganda tool with zero survival odds.

It’s like a zombie apocalypse, but with Cold War weapons. Undead, underwhelming, and under warranty from the Ministry of Delusion.

What It All Means (Spoiler: Nothing Good)

The Barsovo boom was more than an accident. It was a bar mitzvah for incompetence. A coming-of-age moment for a superpower that forgot what century it’s in.

What did it show?

Russia’s defense industry is coughing up rust.
North Korea’s testing weapons on Russian soil, free QA in exchange for some noodles and reactor parts.
International arms treaties are being used for toilet paper.
Civilians in Ukraine (and maybe beyond) are now living next to unexploded candy-colored time bombs.

We’re not watching a military evolve — we’re watching it devolve, backwards through time, until it’s just angry men lobbing fireworks over a fence.

Closing Argument from the Ashes

Here’s the takeaway: The Russian war machine isn’t dying with dignity. It’s burning out with a laugh track. The hypersonic missile talk? The nuclear swagger? All distraction. Because underneath the chest-thumping and Victory Day parades, you’ve got a country that just blew itself up with 60-year-old North Korean knockoffs.

This isn’t strategy.
This is state-sponsored slapstick.

And while the world stares at mushroom clouds on TikTok, the people pulling the levers are doing it with blueprints faxed in from Pyongyang and dreams taped together with duct tape and delusion.

Still want to play superpower, Moscow?
Try not buying your weapons from a country that thinks gravity is a conspiracy.

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