North Korea claimed the successful launch of a new intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missile that traveled roughly 930 miles at 12 times the speed of sound, state-run media reported Tuesday. Photo by KCNA/EPA-EFE
SEOUL, Jan. 7 (UPI) — North Korea said Tuesday it successfully test-fired a new intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missile, claiming the weapon would “reliably contain any rivals in the Pacific region.”
The missile, which was fired on Monday, traveled roughly 930 miles at 12 times the speed of sound, the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency reported. The hypersonic glide vehicle of the missile reached a first peak of 61 miles and a second peak of 26 miles, the report said.
South Korea’s military called the claims “highly likely to be deceptive,” however.
“The range analyzed by South Korea, the United States and Japan was approximately 1,100 kilometers (683 miles), and there was no secondary apex altitude,” Lee Sung-joon, spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a press briefing Tuesday.
“North Korea is an organization that is good at propaganda, incitement, and deception,” he said. “It has made many such exaggerated announcements in the past.”
Lee said the military believes the launch was a follow-up to a hypersonic intermediate-range missile test in April.
The JCS reported that it detected the launch on Monday, saying the missile was fired from the Pyongyang area and flew into the East Sea.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un oversaw the launch via a monitoring system, KCNA reported, and said the weapons system “can deal a serious military strike to a rival while effectively breaking any dense defensive barrier.”
“The hypersonic missile system will reliably contain any rivals in the Pacific region that can affect the security of our state,” Kim said.
A hypersonic missile was on a wish list of weapons that Kim laid out at a party congress in January 2021, alongside nuclear-powered submarines, submarine-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles, “ultramodern tactical nuclear weapons” and military satellites.
Hypersonic weapons travel at least five times the speed of sound and are maneuverable mid-flight, making them a challenge for missile detection and interception systems. Intermediate-range missiles tipped with nuclear warheads could place U.S. military installations in Guam — around 2,100 miles away — within reach.
The launch came as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Seoul for talks on issues including the North Korean nuclear threat.
Blinken and his counterpart, Cho Tae-yul, condemned the launch at a joint press conference on Monday afternoon, while the American diplomat warned about the growing military cooperation between Russia and North Korea.
“The DPRK is already receiving Russian military equipment and training,” Blinken said, using the official acronym for North Korea. “Now, we have reason to believe that Moscow intends to share advanced space and satellite technology with Pyongyang.”
“[Russian President Vladimir] Putin may be close to reversing a decades-long policy by accepting DPRK’s nuclear weapons program,” he added.
North Korea has sent munitions and missiles to Russia, as well as up to 12,000 troops to aid Moscow’s war effort in the southwestern Kursk region. Washington and its allies have long expressed concern that Pyongyang is receiving advanced military technology in return.
In a year-end address at the Eighth Party Congress, Kim condemned the alliance between the United States, Japan and South Korea as a “nuclear military bloc for aggression” and called for the “toughest anti-U.S. counteraction to be launched aggressively.”