SEOUL – North Korea fired “several” ballistic missiles on April 22 towards the sea off its east coast, according to South Korea’s military.

A Japanese government alert and the country’s coast guard also said North Korea fired what appeared to be a ballistic missile. The projectile seemed to have landed outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone area, the NHK broadcaster said.

Japan’s NTV broadcaster said the projectile was a short-range ballistic missile, citing a Japanese government official.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the North launched what it suspected to be several short-range ballistic missiles from near its capital, Pyongyang, without providing further details.

Seoul-based specialist site NK News said the “brief flight time, likely under 10 minutes, points to the launch involving a short-range ballistic missile or 600mm multiple launch rocket system”.

The reports of the launch came as South Korea said its top military officer, Admiral Kim Myung-soo, hosted the commander of United States Space Command, General Stephen Whiting, on April 22 to discuss the North’s reconnaissance satellite development and growing military cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow.

After a summit between the two countries’ leaders in September, North Korea has been suspected of supplying arms and munitions to Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, although both deny that claim.

The North is believed to be preparing to launch another spy satellite, after successfully putting a reconnaissance satellite in orbit in November.

North Korea said last week that it fired a strategic cruise missile to test a large warhead, and a new anti-aircraft missile.

Unlike their ballistic counterparts, the testing of cruise missiles is not banned under current United Nations sanctions on North Korea.

Cruise missiles tend to be jet-propelled and fly at a lower altitude than more sophisticated ballistic missiles, making them harder to detect and intercept.

Analysts have warned that North Korea could be testing cruise missiles ahead of sending them to Russia for use in Ukraine, with Washington and Seoul claiming North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has shipped weapons to Moscow, despite UN sanctions banning any such moves.

Seoul claims Pyongyang has sent around 7,000 containers of weapons to Moscow for use in Ukraine.

North Korea has recently bolstered military ties with Moscow. It thanked Russia for its veto blocking the renewal of a panel of UN experts that monitored international sanctions against it.

It has also ramped up testing, claiming in early April to have tested a new medium-to-long-range solid-fuel hypersonic missile.

So far in 2024, Pyongyang has declared South Korea its “principal enemy”, jettisoned agencies dedicated to reunification and outreach, and threatened war over “even 0.001 mm” of territorial infringement.

In 2023, the North conducted a record number of missile tests in defiance of UN sanctions in place since 2006 and despite warnings from Washington and Seoul.

Pyongyang declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear weapons state in 2022.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was in Seoul in March, will be back in the region this week making his second visit in less than a year to China. REUTERS, AFP