North Korea launched a ballistic missile into the East Sea on the 3rd, a day after Kim Yo-jong, the head of the Workers' Party's General Affairs Department, dismissed inter-Korean talks.
Kim Yo-jong announced on the day of the missile launch that it was an unusual launch training for a medium-range strategic missile, raising the possibility that it was a hypersonic medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) 'Hwasong-16na'.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff said, "Around 6:30 a.m. on the 3rd, we captured a ballistic missile launched from the area of Wonsan, North Korea, into the East Sea. The captured North Korean missile flew more than 700 km, and South Korea and the United States are conducting a detailed analysis of its exact specifications."
Japan's Ministry of Defense also announced that the maximum altitude of North Korea's ballistic missile was about 90 km, and that it is believed to have flown about 680 km before landing outside Japan's exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
Typically, missiles with a range of 300 to 1,000 km are classified as short-range ballistic missiles, but the Joint Chiefs of Staff did not specify that the missile captured that day was a short-range ballistic missile.
Military authorities are known to be analyzing the specifications of North Korea's mid-range (MRBM, range 1,000-3,000 km) or intermediate-range (IRBM, range 3,000-5,500 km) ballistic missiles, leaving open the possibility that they may have test-launched them with a reduced range.
In response to this, Kim Yo-jong announced through a report by the Korean Central News Agency that the missile launch on this day was a strategic weapon launch exercise using a mid-range strategic missile.
Regarding the announcement of the range by the Korean and Japanese military authorities, Kim Yo-jong called it an "interesting number" and claimed, "Whenever the wave-type flight trajectory method was applied, the enemy lost the target after the first jumping point."
In particular, considering the claim that it has the ability to change flight trajectory at low altitudes, the ballistic missile launched on this day is presumed to be the 'Hwasong-16na' series of hypersonic medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) characterized by anomalous maneuvers.
Unlike the trajectory of a general ballistic missile, a hypersonic missile performs a pull-up (descent and then ascends) maneuver in the descent phase and then glides for a certain section. It is characterized by a longer flight range than expected by the Korean and Japanese military authorities due to limitations in radar detection due to the curvature of the Earth.
However, North Korea did not disclose the specific flight distance of the missile launched that day.
This launch is similar to North Korea's ballistic missile launch on August 12.
At the time, the Joint Chiefs of Staff stated that the ballistic missile that North Korea launched from the Wonsan area to the East Sea around 6 a.m. flew more than 700 km, but did not judge it to be a 'short-range ballistic missile.' At the time, the possibility was raised that the missile was fired with a reduced range of a mid-range or mid-range ballistic missile.
The day after a ballistic missile launch, North Korea used to publicize the purpose and results of the launch through extensive state media reports, but remained silent about the missile launch.
Considering the similarities in launch time, location, range, and military authorities' initial judgment, there is a possibility that the missile launched at the time was also Hwasong-16na.
This launch came three days after our military authorities demanded an apology and responsible action from North Korea in connection with an incident in which three South Korean soldiers were seriously injured in a recent explosion of a land mine buried in the area south of the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) in the 25th Division's 25th Division's Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) on the Western Front.
On the 30th of last month, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement issued by Lieutenant General Kang Hyeon-woo, the head of the Operational Headquarters, that our soldiers were seriously injured by North Korean land mines and demanded that North Korea immediately stop the so-called 'border line fortification' work.
However, on the same day, in a statement by North Korean Workers' Party General Affairs Director Kim Yo-jong, North Korea denied the announcement by our military authorities that a North Korean landmine had exploded, saying it was an "obvious self-made play" and that "our soldiers have never crossed the border."
In an additional statement released the previous day, Kim Yo-jong also criticized President Lee Jae-myung's Armed Forces Day commemoration speech, saying that he would continue to take measures to reduce military tensions between North and South Korea, as a "self-made farce," and dismissed Unification Minister Chung Dong-young's proposal for inter-Korean dialogue as "a delusion and one-sided complaint that is not worth responding to."
This is North Korea's 15th ballistic missile launch this year and the first in 13 days since the 20th of last month.
On the 20th of last month, North Korea launched two short-range ballistic missiles three hours apart from the Wonsan area into the East Sea.
Two days later, North Korea announced that it was a launch test of the 'Hwasongpo-11Ma-1', an improved version of the hypersonic missile 'Hwasong-11Ma'. The Hwaseong-11ma is a missile equipped with a hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV)-shaped warhead on the KN-23 launch vehicle, North Korea's representative short-range ballistic missile.
It is also called a 'game changer' as it combines a speed as fast as a ballistic missile with a flight altitude as low as a cruise missile, and has anomalous mobility to evade missile defense networks.
