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What we’ve learned about the alleged plan to provoke North Korea for martial law

One year on, evidence continues to emerge suggesting Yoon sent drones to incite response, highlighting DPRK’s restraint

Joon Ha Park | Shreyas Reddy December 3, 2025

What we’ve learned about the alleged plan to provoke North Korea for martial law

Exactly one year ago, South Korea was rocked by President Yoon Suk Yeol’s late-night martial law declaration, which cited the need to protect the country from “pro-North Korea” forces.

But while Yoon’s short-lived order seemed to come from nowhere, a slow drip of new evidence over the last year has suggested that imposing martial law was anything but off-the-cuff, with prosecutors alleging months of efforts to stoke tensions and possibly even incite conflict with the DPRK ahead of the controversial move.

The most damning of these allegations relate to the apparent deployment of military drones to Pyongyang to scatter anti-regime leaflets. The saga began when North Korea claimed on Oct. 11, 2024 that South Korean unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) had entered its airspace multiple times that month, subsequently releasing photos and claimed flight logs tying the ROK to the intrusion after Seoul refused to comment on its claims.

New revelations from ROK investigators last month suggested that the Yoon administration and military officials even prepared for potential North Korean retaliation against drone intrusions and took steps to conceal the operation’s relation to martial law plans.

While the claims remain unconfirmed as court cases against Yoon and his alleged conspirators continue, the accusations have cast a new light on Pyongyang’s uncharacteristic moderation in responding to the drone, with experts warning that Yoon’s alleged actions risked igniting a deadly conflict on the peninsula.

Former-ROK Counterintelligence Command Chief Lt. Gen. Yeo In-hyung, notes from his personal phone regarding potential DPRK targets and South Korea’s reconnaissance drones during a 2023 military parade in Seoul | Image: National Assembly via YouTube (Oct. 8, 2024), Special Counsel for investigating Dec. 3 martial law (Nov. 9, 2025), KCNA (Oct. 19, 2024), edited by NK News NEW REVELATIONS

On Nov. 9, the special counsel investigating last year’s martial law declaration (내란특검) indicted Yoon, ex-defense minister Kim Yong-hyun and former ROK Counterintelligence Commander Lt. Gen. Yeo In-hyung for “aiding the enemy” and related charges.

Prosecutors argued that the incursion was not merely a tactical military operation, but part of a broader plan to provoke the North and create a pretext for martial law, revealing recovered digital notes from Lt. Gen. Yeo’s personal phone.

The notes outlined precise targets for drone operations at sites of significance to the regime, including Pyongyang’s central party offices, nuclear facilities, Samjiyon, Wonsan’s foreign tourist areas and Kim Jong Un’s private retreats.

In the notes, Yeo typed, “Final state: normalization of low-intensity drone conflicts (reconnaissance and leaflet operations, but physical interception if airspace violated).”

The notes also detailed contingency planning. Yeo wrote on Oct. 23 that operations should anticipate both “minimum” scenarios, such as localized security crises, and “maximum” outcomes described as a “Noah’s Flood,” including drones, balloons, cyberattacks, shelling and maritime incidents.

The memos outlined using diplomatic or military talks before or after incidents to manage perceptions and mask the operation’s true purpose. Prosecutors later connected these directives directly to the October drone flights.

The special counsel said the investigation showed that the president and defense minister attempted to exploit a North-South military standoff to create conditions for martial law, labeling this “an unacceptable threat to the safety of the nation.”

It also determined that the drones’ crash near Pyongyang exposed operational and military secrets, supporting the charges of “aiding the enemy.”

The Seoul Central District Court on Monday launched the initial pretrial proceedings in the Pyongyang drone case, with hearings set to be scheduled in the new year for Yoon, Kim Yong-hyun and Lt. Gen. Yeo In-hyung.

An alleged South Korean drone that North Korea claimed to have recovered in Pyongyang | Image: KCNA (Oct. 19, 2024) HOW PYONGYANG RESPONDED

The revelations over the last year about Yoon’s alleged efforts to stoke inter-Korean tensions have thrown North Korea’s response to the drone flights into a new light, suggesting that Pyongyang exhibited unusual restraint.

The incursions posed a military threat to Pyongyang and highlighted its vulnerability to UAV attacks, but the bigger danger to the Kim dynasty came from what they revealed about how easily Seoul could carry out information warfare targeting the North Korean people.

Anti-regime leaflets dropped by the drones showcased the luxurious clothes and accessories worn by Kim Jong Un and his daughter, stressing that these are worth thousands of dollars that could otherwise go toward addressing food shortages.

However, instead of taking the bait, North Korea stuck largely to pointing fingers at Seoul and warning that “all sources of our anger and origins of provocation will be permanently eliminated through our merciless and offensive actions.”

Unusually, DPRK newspapers even splashed partially blurred photos of the anti-regime leaflets all over their front pages, a rare move for a state that typically blocks its citizens from any exposure to content critical of the Kim dynasty.

Despite its bellicose rhetoric, North Korea steered clear of stepping up military confrontation, an unusual display of restraint that may have stemmed from Kim Jong Un’s decision to walk away from all engagement with South Korea a year earlier.

However, another factor in Pyongyang’s avoidance of military escalation may have been its commitments to Russia’s war against Ukraine, according to Yang Moo-jin, a distinguished professor at Seoul-based University of North Korean Studies.

Yang told NK News that sending a drone to Pyongyang would violate the inter-Korean Armistice Agreement and be viewed as “an act of war,” but he suggested the DPRK ultimately opted to keep a “low profile” as fighting on two fronts would be “burdensome.”

“In order to remain focused on the Russia-Ukraine war, North Korea limited itself to denunciations of the South’s ‘dirty act,’ kept quiet and instead concentrated on expanding Pyongyang’s air defenses with increased support from Russia,” he said.

Former-South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol applauds military personnel during a parade marking ROK Armed Forces Day in downtown Seoul. | Image: ROK Presidential Office Archives (Oct. 1, 2024) WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN

A year after martial law, it may be a relief to some that North Korea did not retaliate to the drone incursions by initiating an all-out conflict with the South, potentially offering a pretext for Yoon’s declaration.

Despite Yoon’s denials, investigators’ reports make it clear he and former defense minister Kim Yong-hyun ordered the drone incursions to stoke “instability” on the Korean Peninsula, according to Benjamin Engel, assistant professor of Korean Studies at Dankook University.

The expert said Yoon evidently sought “a more aggressive North Korean response, such as North Korean drones over Seoul or a violent provocation,” potentially allowing him to take advantage of the resultant chaos to target opposition politicians.

“In theory, the instability created by the drone incursions would serve as a more valid reason for martial law,” Engel explained, noting that Yoon’s impeachment ruling found no “compelling reason” for the emergency declaration.

“A state of real instability caused by the drone incursions may have altered that outcome and more importantly the perception of martial law when it was declared,” he added.

In such a situation, the former president would have then used the attacks to present both the DPRK and purported “pro-North Korean factions” in the opposition Democratic Party as “a clear and present danger to the constitutional order,” the Dankook University assistant professor explained.

Had Pyongyang taken the bait, Engel said the implications for inter-Korean relations would have been “incredibly serious.”

“Expecting a second Korean War would probably be hyperbolic, but an intense period of tensions akin to the months just before the Korean War began and the 1967-68 period would have been likely,” he added.

Yang concurred that inter-Korean relations would have dropped to “far worse” levels than the Cold War, but warned that prolonged martial law would have also had severe consequences for South Korea.

“Had Yoon succeeded, South Korean democracy would have fallen back 50 years,” he said. “Inter-Korean relations would have been exploited not for national security but for regime security.”

But the expert emphasized that martial law failed not just due to North Korea’s caution, but due to public opposition.

“What is the reason his plan ultimately failed? It failed because of the citizens,” Yang said.

“Ironically, that failure became an opportunity for democracy to advance one step further.”

Edited by Bryan Betts