North Korean media announced on Sunday that the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that the regime launched on Saturday was a Hwasong-15, the missile with the second longest potential range in its arsenal and that it first used in 2017.
The North Korean military carried out a “sudden launch” of the missile and fired it from a very steep angle, according to the KCNA news agency.
The General Department of Missiles launched the device from the Sunan International Airport in Pyongyang, explains the text of the state news agency.
The trial, which took place at 5:22 p.m. on Saturday (local time), “was organized suddenly and without prior notice,” based on “an emergency order issued in the early hours of February 18.”
According to KCNA, the projectile traveled 989 kilometers in 1,015 seconds (one hour and six minutes) and reached a peak of 5,768.5 kilometers, data that coincides with the revelations made this Saturday by the South Korean and Japanese armies.
North Korea had only tested the Hwasong-15 once, in November 2017, amid an escalation of verbal threats between Pyongyang and then-US President Donald Trump.
The text of the North Korean news agency also maintains that the “military threats” from South Korea and the US “are becoming very serious, to the point that they cannot be ignored.”
On Friday, Pyongyang threatened an “unprecedented” response to the annual spring military exercises that Seoul and Washington began preparing for March, which the regime described as “preparations for a war of aggression.”
Next week, the South Korean and US militaries will also hold a tabletop exercise at the Pentagon simulating a nuclear attack by Pyongyang.
In 2022, North Korea carried out a record number of missile launches, around fifty, in many cases in response to the joint maneuvers of the two allies and the strengthening of the US strategic presence on the peninsula.
Source: TSF
