The weapons North Korea has been testing since 2019 have shown greater sophistication.
The North Korean media announced today that the projectile that the regime tested the day before is a hypersonic missile that hit a target located “1,000 kilometers” away and that the test was chaired by the leader Kim Jong-un, who carried without being present at a weapons test for almost two years.
According to the Rondong newspaper, the missile’s hypersonic gliding warhead “traced” its trajectory after traveling 600 kilometers and “executed a sharp turn of 240 kilometers” before “hitting the target in waters located 1,000 kilometers” from the launch point. in the Sea of Japan (called the East Sea in the two Koreas).
The article adds that Kim Jong-un “observed the hypersonic missile test conducted at the National Academy of Defense Sciences,” marking the first time that the North Korean marshal has been present at a missile test since March 2020.
Photos published by Rodong show Kim following the development of the test from a control center arranged inside a large vehicle in the company of Jo Yong-won, who along with the leader is one of the five members of the politburo presidium of the Workers’ Parties.
The piece adds that “the objective of the test was the final verification of the general technical specifications of the hypersonic weaponry system developed” and that thanks to the test “the excellent maneuverability of the hypersonic combat glider unit has been more clearly confirmed”.
On the eve, the South Korean army described what was launched by North Korea as a ballistic missile that traveled about 700 kilometers and reached a maximum speed of around Mach 10 (10 times the speed of sound).
Although it considered that this projectile showed improvements over a similar one that Pyongyang launched on January 5, Seoul considers the regime’s claims exaggerated and argues that it still lacks the technology (including the type of warhead that the missile carries) of what it is properly considered a hypersonic missile.
If anything, the weapons North Korea has been testing since 2019 have shown greater sophistication in circumventing radar systems and potentially pose a growing threat to missile shields.
The day before was the second North Korean weapons test in less than a week and comes after Kim Jong-un again showed in a speech an apparent disinterest in trying to resume the denuclearization talks with the United States that had been stalled since 2019. (I)
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