In its standoff with part of the international community, notably the United States, Pyongyang once again wanted to show its military power. North Korea announced this Monday that it had successfully fired a new type of ballistic missile equipped with a maneuverable hypersonic warhead, a new technological advance in weapons.
The launch, the first of a solid-fueled hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), was detected by the South Korean military on Sunday afternoon.
A test that “has nothing to do with the regional situation”
This solid fuel was “loaded with a hypersonic and maneuverable controlled warhead,” according to the North Korean state news agency KCNA. It was intended to “verify the gliding and maneuverability capabilities” as well as “the reliability of the newly developed new high-thrust, multi-stage solid fuel engine.”
KCNA, on the other hand, affirmed that this launch, the first reported by Pyongyang since the beginning of the year, “has never affected the security of a neighboring country and has nothing to do with the regional situation”. However, it comes a few days after live ammunition artillery exercises and against a backdrop of concerns around a hardening of Pyongyang’s position. Last week, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un described South Korea as the country’s “main enemy” that he would not hesitate to “annihilate”.
Solid-fuel missiles are easier to hide and faster to fire, and hypersonic missiles generally allow them to be maneuvered in flight to better hit targets. These two technologies have long been on the list of weapons technologies that Kim Jong-un wishes to possess. In mid-December, he supervised the firing of a Hwasong-18, a solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), fired into the Sea of Japan. KCNA published this Monday a single photo of the missile launch to accompany the information without mentioning the presence of the leader on this occasion.
Strengthened ties with Moscow
Pyongyang also succeeded last year in putting a spy satellite into orbit, after having received, according to South Korea, Russian technological aid, in exchange for arms deliveries for Moscow’s war in Ukraine. Russia and North Korea, long-time allies, have in fact shown a rapprochement since the North Korean leader’s trip to the Russian Far East last September to meet President Vladimir Putin. KCNA also indicated on Sunday that North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui would visit Russia next week, at the invitation of his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.