SEOUL: North Korea flexed its military muscle with the test of a huge new solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile dubbed Hwasong-19, state media said on Friday (Nov 1), amid international uproar over its troops deployed to aid Russia in Ukraine.
The launch on Thursday flew higher than any previous North Korean missile, according to the North as well as militaries in South Korea and Japan that tracked its flight deep into space before it splashed down in the ocean between Japan and Russia.
State news agency KCNA lauded it as “the world’s strongest strategic missile”.
While questions remain over North Korea’s ability to guide such a missile and protect a nuclear warhead as it reenters the atmosphere, the Hwasong-19, like North Korea’s other latest ICBMs, demonstrated the range to strike nearly anywhere in the United States.
“The new-type ICBM proved before the world that the hegemonic position we have secured in the development and manufacture of nuclear delivery,” leader Kim Jong Un said while overseeing the launch, KCNA reported.
Thursday’s missile launch, just days before next week’s pivotal US presidential election, drew swift condemnation from Washington and its allies in South Korea, Japan and Europe, as well as the United Nations Secretary-General.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy blasted what he called his allies’ “zero” response to Russia’s deployment of North Korean troops for the war in Ukraine, which has also sparked worries that Moscow could provide sensitive military technology to Pyongyang in return.
Russia and North Korea have not denied the troop deployments and defended their right to help each other.
