SEOUL, South Korea: North Korea said on Wednesday it had successfully test-fired a strategic cruise missile, part of a selection of recently launched weapons that analysts warn could be intended for Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The North’s state news agency KCNA reported that the “Hwasal-2” missile was fired into the West Sea on Tuesday.
The launch was first reported by Seoul’s military, which said it had detected several cruise missiles.
KCNA said the exercise was to test the military’s “rapid counterattack” as well as improve “its strategic strike capability.”
It added that the launch had “no adverse impact on the security” of neighbouring countries.
This month, Pyongyang conducted tests of what it called an “underwater nuclear weapons system,” a hypersonic solid-fuel ballistic missile and a new generation of strategic cruise missiles.
The North has previously tested the Hwasal-2 strategic cruise missile.
Unlike their ballistic counterparts, testing cruise missiles is not prohibited under current UN sanctions against Pyongyang.
Cruise missiles tend to be jet-powered and fly at a lower altitude than more sophisticated ballistic missiles, making them more difficult to detect and intercept.
Earlier on Sunday, North Korea fired two Pulhwasal-3-31, a type of new strategic cruise missile, from a submarine in a test overseen by leader Kim Jong-un.
Despite a raft of UN sanctions, Seoul and Washington say Kim has been delivering weapons to Russia, possibly in exchange for Moscow’s technical assistance in Pyongyang’s fledgling spy satellite programme.
Kim made a rare overseas trip to Russia in September to meet President Vladimir Putin at the spaceport, with Putin now set to visit Pyongyang in return.
The North successfully launched its first spy satellite into orbit in November.
“North Korea is believed to have started mass production of cruise missiles ordered by Russia,” Ahn Chan-il, a defector-turned-researcher who heads the World Institute for North Korea Studies, told media.
The test launches also come at a time when relations between the two Koreas have deteriorated sharply, with Kim declaring Seoul his main enemy.
