North Korea fires long-range ballistic missile, South Korea says

North Korea fired a suspected long-range ballistic missile towards the sea off its east coast on Thursday, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said, a day after Seoul reported the North was making preparations to test-launch an intercontinental ballistic missile.

The launch, at a sharply raised angle, was from an area near the North’s capital, Pyongyang, at 7:10 a.m. (2210 GMT), the Joint Chiefs said in a statement. It did not confirm whether the missile had dropped.

“It is believed the North Korea ballistic missile is a long-range ballistic missile fired at a high angle,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.

Japan’s Coast Guard also said North Korea fired what could be a ballistic missile. The Japanese government said the missile was expected to land around 2336 GMT about 300 km (190 miles) west of its Okushiri Island off its northern Hokkaido region.

On Wednesday, South Korea’s Defense Intelligence Command said the North had placed a mobile launcher at a location making preparations to launch what could be an ICBM around the time of the US presidential election, which takes place on Tuesday.

North Korea has conducted a series of ICBM test launches at a sharply steep trajectory to let the projectiles drop within much shorter distances relative to the designed range, partly for safety and to avoid the political fallout of sending a missile far into the Pacific.

But a launch with a flatter, standard trajectory is considered essential for ICBM development to ensure the warhead is capable of making a re-entry into the atmosphere while maintaining control to hit an intended target.

The North last test launched an ICBM in December last year, a projectile fuelled by solid-propellant and fired from a road launcher. That launch was also at a sharply raised angle and gave a flight time that could translate to a potential range of 15,000 km (9,300 miles) on a normal trajectory.

North Korea has come under international condemnation after South Korea and the United States said Pyongyang had dispatched 11,000 troops to Russia for deployment in the war in Ukraine, with 3,000 of them already moved close to the frontlines.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and his South Korean counterpart Kim Yong-hyun condemned the deployment at a meeting in Washington on Wednesday.

North Korea’s move to make its troops co-belligerents fighting alongside the Russians has the potential to lengthen the already 2-1/2 year Ukraine conflict and draw in others, Austin said.