Swarm of Cambodian Drones Could Kill Ceasefire With Thailand

The new ceasefire between Thailand and Cambodia is in serious jeopardy after Thai military officials accused their neighbour of a provocation – flying a swarm of 250 drones across the border on Sunday night.

The Thai Army has warned it may review its plan to release 18 Cambodian prisoners of war held in Thai custody since July, according to local media reports late on Monday.

Army spokesman Major-General Winthai Suvaree said more than 250 Cambodian drones were detected in Thai airspace over eight locations in four northeastern provinces bordering Cambodia – Buri Ram, Sisaket, Surin and Ubon Ratchathani – and that was a violation of the agreement to de-escalate border tensions, as stipulated in the joint statement issued on December 27.

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“This act is considered a provocation and violation of tension-relieving measures and does not comply with the Joint Statement from the GBC (General Border Committee) meeting on December 27, 2025,” Maj-Gen Winthai said.

Such conduct indicated that Cambodia continues to provoke tensions and remains hostile toward Thailand, which may threaten Thai security and the safety of Thai troops and civilians along the border, he said.

Winthai said Thailand would closely monitor Cambodia’s conduct to determine whether it is strictly complying with the 72-hour truce agreement, which is due to expire at noon on Tuesday (Dec 30).

Thai troops were still deployed in border areas that were reclaimed recently and would continue to maintain security in those areas while complying with the truce agreement, the spokesman said.

He insisted that the Thai army wanted a peaceful settlement and placed importance on reducing border tensions through existing mechanisms, while taking “necessary action” to respond to provocative acts in defence of Thai sovereignty and national interests.

Cambodia was accused of a similar act – deemed to be excessive use of drones – after the first round of border clashes in July, he said.

Foreign ministers met China’s top diplomat

Meanwhile, Cambodia’s State Secretariat of Border Affairs issued a statement on Monday informing its citizens that the Joint Boundary Commission of Cambodia had sent a note to its Thai counterpart proposing a meeting in the first week of January – to discuss and continue surveys and border demarcation in areas from Kilometre (KM) 42 to KM 47 and from KM 33 to KM 37 between border markers in Sa Kaew province.

The latest drone alert occurred as the two countries’ foreign ministers flew to southern China to discuss ways to ‘consolidate’ a 72-hour ceasefire with moves to bolster mutual trust.

The two countries ended nearly three weeks of fierce border clashes on Saturday with their second ceasefire in recent months after the worst fighting in decades between the Southeast Asian nations.

The agreement, signed by Thai Defence Minister Natthaphon Narkphanit and his Cambodian counterpart Tea Seiha, ended 20 days of fighting that killed at least 101 people and displaced more than half a million on both sides and included fighter-jet sorties, exchanges of rocket fire and artillery barrages.

Thailand, whose armed forces are vastly superior to Cambodia’s, has publicised the death of 21 soldiers and mine injuries that saw at least 10 more lose limbs, but Phnom Penh has been less forthcoming. It has reported 21 civilian deaths, but no details on military casualties, which are rumoured to be far higher, both in the initial clashes in July or this month.

But a report in The Diplomat last week said at least 13 Cambodian soldiers were killed and over 420 soldiers and border police treated in just one province – at a hospital in Preah Vihear, which is perhaps the closest major facility to the historic ruins on an infamous clifftop known in Thailand as Khao Phra Viharn.

Similar casualty figures are expected in about five other disputed areas where fighting raged along the 817-kilometre (508-mile) border. That includes two sites now occupied by the Thai army, it said.

And now, the ancient temple on the cliff overlooking Cambodia, which was listed by UNESCO in 2008 as a World Heritage site, is also said to have been badly damaged.

Khao Phra Viharn (Preah Vihear) is a bitterly contested landmark and one with a dark history, having been the site of a notorious refugee pushback, reported by the New York Times in June 1979, and noted by a Cambodian website earlier this month.

That raises the question of whether historic grievances have been a factor in the minds of Cambodian leaders, as there has been uncertainty on their motives and actions in border regions – erecting monuments and planting landmines in disputed areas.

Displaced Thais queue for food at a temporary shelter amid clashes along their disputed border with Cambodia, in Buri Ram province, Dec 16, 2025 (Reuters, Athit Perawongmetha).

‘Political diversion and distraction’

Analysts have speculated that Phnom Penh wants to ‘internationalise’ the border demarcation dispute, rather than leave it to bilateral negotiation, and is also keen to distract attention from the dramatic proliferation of scam centres throughout Cambodia.

Chulalongkorn Professor Thitinan Pongsudhirak said the renewed violence, which he described as the worst interstate clash in the 58 years that ASEAN (the regional bloc) has been in existence, stemmed from “domestic political pressures and inflamed nationalism on both sides.”

The new Anutin Charnvirakul government had been under pressure over its handling of floods in Hat Yai and claims of links to regional scam networks, so it likely welcomed a domestic political diversion and public distraction, he said, while the Cambodian regime “also benefits from stoking nationalist fervour.”

“Inequality in Cambodia has widened sharply,” he wrote, in a column in the Bangkok Post, because its illicit economy was flowing to the politically connected elites, while hundreds of thousands of Cambodian workers had had to return home from Thailand in July and many are now likely out of work.

So, it had “strong incentives to redirect public anger outward by casting Cambodia as a bullied victim of a larger, better-armed Thailand.”

Jacob Sims, the Harvard researcher who launched a report early this year exposing the explosive growth of scam centres in Southeast Asia, said recently in an interview with ‘scam fighter’ Erin West that these compounds are run by Cambodia’s most powerful people – senators and even members of the Hun family. Some have already been sanctioned by US officials.

Airstrikes on scam compounds

Tensions continued and it was no surprise when clashes reignited this month after a breakdown in the ceasefire that US President Donald Trump and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim had helped broker to halt the previous round of fighting in July.

This time, the Thai military was determined to confront what it classed as border incursions and scam centres close to the frontier. A top general stated plainly that they needed to ‘disable’ Cambodia’s military capabilities.

F-16 fighter jets were used for airstrikes on military targets and at least six buildings said to be scam compounds destroyed.

In the weeks before this, Myanmar had also got into the act, demolishing dozens of buildings across from Thailand’s northwest border, as military chief Min Aung Hlaing also wanted to be seen as acting tough against criminals targeting the US, China and other countries.

On the border with Cambodia, Thai officials said some scam compounds had been used as covert military hubs to house drones. It bombed six compounds in various locations, four of which Phnom Penh described as “casinos.”

Thailand portrayed the conflict as “a war against the Scam Army,” according to a New York Times report, which said UN personnel and activists were concerned that people trafficked and forced to work in some of these places may be injured during air strikes, if they were forbidden from leaving these buildings.

One worker told the paper: “Foreign workers were not allowed to leave.” Another “reported seeing dozens of people beaten to death” in months before the air strikes occurred, it said.

But Sims, the US researcher, predicted the closure of a small number of compounds near the border was unlikely to greatly reduce the scam problem in Cambodia, as there are now “hundreds” of such centres throughout the country.

Peace talks continued in Yunnan

Thailand and Cambodia have contested sovereignty at various undemarcated points along their long border for more than a century. Occasionally, these disputes exploded into skirmishes and fighting.

On Sunday, Cambodia’s top diplomat, Prak Sokhonn, and his Thai counterpart, Sihasak Phuangketkeow, flew to Yunnan for talks with China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi, as Beijing sought to encourage its southern neighbours to build trust and focus on peace and stability.

“Both sides agree to maintain current troop deployments without further movement,” the ministers said in a joint statement on the ceasefire.

“Any reinforcement would heighten tensions and negatively affect long-term efforts to resolve the situation,” according to the statement released on social media by Cambodia.

The new ceasefire will be monitored by an observer team from ASEAN, as well as direct coordination between both countries, Thai Defence Minister Natthaphon said.

“At the same time, at the policy level, there will be direct communication between the minister of defence and chief of the armed forces of both sides,” he told reporters.

Civilians to return, demarcation efforts unaffected

The renewed ceasefire came after a meeting on Monday of ASEAN foreign ministers in Kuala Lumpur, followed by three days of talks between the warring sides at a border checkpoint, where the two defence ministers met on Saturday.

They agreed on the return of people displaced from affected border areas, while underlining that neither side would use any force against civilians.

Thailand will also return 18 Cambodian soldiers in its custody since the July clashes if the ceasefire is fully maintained for 72 hours, according to the agreement.

Saturday’s pact, however, will not affect any border demarcation underway between both countries, leaving the task of resolving disputed areas along the frontier to existing bilateral mechanisms.

“War and clashes don’t make the two countries or the two people happy,” Thailand’s Air Chief Marshal Prapas Sornjaidee told reporters. “I want to stress that the Thai people and the Cambodian people are not in conflict with each other.”

NOTE: The headline and top of this report were amended on Dec 29, 2025 to include news about the drones flown into Thai airspace.