North Korea announced on Wednesday that it conducted a drill to launch the Hwasal-2 strategic cruise missile, which marks the third cruise missile launch by Pyongyang within a week.
The launch in the Yellow Sea had "no adverse effect on the security of a neighboring country", the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said without giving further details, including how many missiles were launched and how far they flew.
The South Korean military announced that North Korea fired several cruise missiles off its western coast, just two days after it test-fired cruise missiles from a submarine off its eastern coast.
North Korea had launched a newly developed strategic cruise missile last Sunday, the Pulhwasal-3-31, from a submarine off the coast of the eastern city of Sinpo which is the main shipyard for submarines, just days after it tested a strategic cruise missile for the first time last Wednesday.
The last time North Korea launched the Hwasal-2 cruise missile was in March 2023, after testing it for the first time in Jan. 2022.
Its natural range is estimated to be up to 2,000 km. The word "Hwasal" means "arrow" in Korean.
Cruise missiles, powered by jet engines, fly low and manoeuvrable, making them hard to detect and intercept.
