The missile went up from Wonsan at about 6am on a Wednesday. It flew more than 700 kilometres before dropping into the water between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said. Japanese authorities picked it up too and reported that it came down outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone.
It was the second North Korean launch in under a week, and it came just days before the United States and South Korea opened their annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises. Pyongyang had not confirmed the earlier test either. Seoul, Washington and Tokyo all said they detected that one on August 6, fired from the same area. South Korea counts the latest launch as the North’s 11th suspected ballistic missile test this year.
South Korea’s Office of National Security called an emergency meeting and urged Pyongyang to stop provocations that violate UN Security Council resolutions. Those resolutions ban North Korea from launching ballistic missiles. Seoul and Tokyo both condemned the launch, and Seoul said it was ready to respond alongside the United States.
Why now
North Korea offered no explanation. Analysts see the timing as a warning. Pyongyang calls the joint drills a rehearsal for invasion; Washington and Seoul say they are defensive. The exercises run August 17 to 27 and involve about 18,000 South Korean troops and personnel from the roughly 28,500 US troops stationed in the South.
Andrew Yeo, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told Al Jazeera that short-range tests are “not unusual”. He pointed to “a steady pattern over the past two decades of North Korea firing missiles around the time” of the joint exercises. There is also, he said, “a performative aspect to missile testing”.
Hong Min, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification, told Reuters the test most likely belonged to the North’s existing weapons programme. Choosing the moment, he added, was a political decision.
Russia and the wider tension
This year’s drills also factor in North Korea’s growing military cooperation with Russia. North Korea has reportedly sent thousands of soldiers to help Russia in Ukraine. Colonel Ryan Donald, spokesman for the US and South Korean Combined Forces Command, said on Monday that those soldiers had “taken those lessons they learned there and brought them back to North Korea”.
Zelenskyy said on Tuesday that Moscow used a North Korean ballistic missile in an attack that killed 12 workers at a steel plant in Zaporizhzhia.
Other disputes are running alongside. Pyongyang has criticised South Korea’s plans for nuclear-powered submarines and accused Japan of moving toward greater militarisation. Earlier this month Kim Yo Jong, the sister of leader Kim Jong Un, warned of “additional military options” after Japan test-fired a US-made Tomahawk cruise missile.
Testing has climbed since talks between Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump collapsed in 2019, during Trump’s first term.
