North Korea Fires Missiles, One Possibly Hypersonic, Over 900km
Multiple ballistic missiles were launched from the Pyongyang area towards the sea off the east coast on Monday. South Korea’s joint chiefs say one flew more than 900km. Japan’s deputy defence minister Takashi Koyari says at least two were fired seventeen minutes apart, the second on an “irregular” flight path he suggested may indicate a hypersonic weapon.
Both landed outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone, the first travelling about 220km and the second more than 910km. Seoul’s presidential office said the launches violate United Nations Security Council resolutions; a spokesman for the joint chiefs, Jang Do-young, called them a show of force in the days after South Korea tested a hypersonic weapon of its own under President Lee Jae Myung. The word “hypersonic” is doing a lot of work in the coverage and is worth holding lightly: it rests on an irregular trajectory observed by Japanese radar, not on any North Korean claim, and the two capitals have not agreed a figure for how many missiles were fired at all. What makes the timing pointed is the audience. With American attention and munitions drawn to the Gulf and to Ukraine, a launch that demonstrates range and manoeuvre costs Pyongyang little and tests how much notice Washington can spare. The pattern to watch is whether these tests move from sea-facing demonstrations towards anything over Japanese territory, which is the step that has historically forced a response.