North Korea launched a ballistic missile toward the East Sea from the area around Wonsan in Gangwon State on the 3rd.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said it detected the projectile at about 6:30 a.m. and is conducting a detailed analysis of its specifications and range.
The military has stepped up surveillance and readiness in case of additional launches. South Korea, the United States and Japan are closely sharing missile data and maintaining full readiness postures, the Joint Chiefs said.
The launch came three days after the South Korean military demanded an apology and responsible measures from Pyongyang over a landmine explosion in the Demilitarized Zone.
Three South Korean soldiers were seriously wounded earlier when a North Korean landmine detonated south of the Military Demarcation Line in the 25th Division's sector on the western front. Lt. Gen. Kang Hyun-woo, director of operations at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, issued a statement on the 30th of last month urging North Korea to immediately halt what it calls work to "fortify the border line."
North Korea denied responsibility the same day in a statement from Kim Yo-jong, head of the Workers' Party General Affairs Department. Kim called the South Korean military's announcement about the landmine explosion "an obvious self-staged farce" and asserted that "our soldiers have never once crossed the border line."
She continued the criticism in an additional statement the previous day. Kim derided President Lee Jae-myung's Armed Forces Day address, which referred to easing tensions between the two Koreas, as "a self-produced clown show," and dismissed Unification Minister Chung Dong-young's offer of dialogue as "a delusion not worth responding to and a one-sided lament."
The launch was North Korea's 15th ballistic missile test this year and the first in 13 days, following a launch on the 20th of last month. On that date, North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles toward the East Sea from the Wonsan area, three hours apart.
Two days later, Pyongyang announced that the projectile was the Hwasongpho-11Ma-1, an upgraded version of the Hwasong-11Ma hypersonic missile. The Hwasong-11Ma is a weapon that mounts a warhead shaped like a hypersonic glide vehicle on the KN-23, a North Korean short-range ballistic missile.
The missile combines the high speed of a ballistic missile with the low altitude of a cruise missile. Its ability to maneuver unpredictably allows it to evade interception, earning it a reputation as a "game changer" among weapons systems.
