38 North "North Korea, Soviet-made transport aircraft → seems to be remodeling early alarms."

A video is drawing attention as it supports some observations that North Korea is converting its former Soviet-made strategic transport aircraft, IL-76, into an aerial early warning aircraft.

According to 38 North, a U.S. media outlet specializing in North Korea, a tourist who visited North Korea last month posted a related video on YouTube that filmed his surroundings just before taking off from Pyongyang Sunan International Airport.

The video showed a Koryo Air-owned IL-76 transport aircraft with a vertical structure that appeared to be a radar dome support just behind its main wing.

Since October last year, the transport plane has been identified through satellite images and has attracted the attention of military experts.

"The details of the structure are difficult to grasp because it was filmed at a distance of about 0.5km, but this structure looks really similar to the radar dome support," 38 North said.

"Commercial satellite images taken since the video was taken show that the transporter appears to have been moved next to a maintenance hangar."

North Korea introduced three IL-76 jets in the 1990s and is known to operate them as cargo planes belonging to Korea Air and use them militarily.

In particular, last year, one was moved to a separate area within Sunan Airport and managed.

The aerial early warning system serves as an "eye of the sky" that detects enemy aircraft and ships with surveillance radar from the sky, analyzes their movements, and delivers them to command and fighter jets.

Military experts have observed that North Korea may receive support from Russia for the long-range radar system technology needed to operate early warning aircraft.