North Korea flexed its military muscle with the test of a huge new solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) dubbed Hwasong-19, state media said yesterday, amid international uproar over its troops deployed to aid Russia in Ukraine.
The launch on Thursday flew higher than any previous North Korean missile, according to the North as well as militaries in South Korea and Japan that tracked its flight deep into space before it splashed down in the ocean between Japan and Russia.
State news agency KCNA lauded it as “the world’s strongest strategic missile”.
While questions remain over North Korea’s ability to guide such a missile and protect a nuclear warhead as it re-enters the atmosphere, the Hwasong-19, like North Korea’s other latest ICBMs, demonstrated the range to strike nearly anywhere in the US.
“The new-type ICBM proved before the world that the hegemonic position we have secured in the development and manufacture of nuclear delivery means of the same kind is absolutely irreversible,” North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said while overseeing the launch, KCNA reported.
The launch, days before Tuesday’s US presidential election, drew swift condemnation from Washington and its allies in South Korea, Japan and Europe, as well as the United Nations secretary-general.
“The missile continues to underwrite the growing credibility of North Korea’s strategic deterrent capabilities,” said Ankit Panda, a senior fellow at the US-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, adding that Kim appeared specifically interested in communicating that message to the US.
The South Korean and US air forces conducted first-ever joint live-fire attack drills yesterday with unmanned aerial vehicles, flying the Global Hawk and the Reaper drones, dropping GPS-guided munitions in simulated strikes against enemy target, South Korea’s air force said.
South Korea yesterday imposed new sanctions on 11 North Korean individuals and four entities over the ICBM test, naming officials for contributing to missile and nuclear development and channelling illegal foreign funds back to the country.
A spokesperson for South Korea’s unification ministry, which handles relations with the North, said the launch could have been for several purposes, including demonstrating military technology, pressuring Washington and diverting attention from the issue of sending North Korean troops to Russia.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky blasted what he called his allies’ “zero” response to Russia’s deployment of North Korean troops for the war in Ukraine, which has also sparked worries that Moscow could provide sensitive military technology to Pyongyang in return.
The Hwasong-19 will deploy alongside the Hwasong-18, which was first launched last year and is also powered by solid fuel, KCNA said.