SEOUL, December 26. /TASS/. At least five North Korean drones have violated South Korea’s airspace, the News1 agency reported on Monday citing the South Korean military.

The North Korean drones were small, no more than two meters in size. One of them flew to the northern neighborhoods of Seoul. The four others flew in the area of Ganghwa Island. The military immediately responded to the incident based on the right to self-defense, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

The military spotted suspicious traces that were interpreted as North Korean drones. The airspace violation was a clear provocation, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

The South Korean military said that "unidentified objects," presumably drones, were detected in border areas of Gyeonggi-do province at about 10:25 local time (04:25 Moscow time). The UAVs crossed the military demarcation line and appeared in Paju, Gimpo, on Ganghwa-do Island, causing a temporary suspension of civilian flights at Seoul’s airports. It is unclear if the drones carried weapons, Yonhap says.

In response, the Republic of Korea scrambled its planes, helicopters and other aircraft. The South Korean military first transmitted warning messages and then opened warning fire and eventually started an operation to destroy the drones. A KA-1 was among the planes that South Korea used. Earlier it was reported that the plane crashed at about 11:39 local time (05:39 Moscow time). The pilots survived and were not hurt. Last time North Korean drones violated the border in 2017.