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Second test before drills
North Korea fired a possible ballistic missile toward the sea on Wednesday, Japan’s Defense Ministry said, with South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff reporting the launch from the Wonsan area toward the East Sea at around 6:00 am.
“The launch on Wednesday came as South Korea and the United States announced plans to hold their annual Ulchi Freedom Shield military drills starting on August 17.”
South Korea said the missile flew more than 700km (435 miles), and Japan’s Defence Ministry said the suspected ballistic missile had “already fallen”, without providing further details.
The launch came two days after South Korea, the U.S. and Japan detected the launch of a short-range ballistic missile from North Korea, described as the North’s first ballistic weapons testing activity since late June.
South Korea and the United States said they will kick off their annual large-scale military drills next week, called Ulchi Freedom Shield, expected to draw an angry response from North Korea because it views the training as a rehearsal to invade it.
Protests, readiness, and warnings
South Korea’s national security council called North Korean ballistic missile launches “acts of provocation” and urged the North to halt them immediately, while South Korea’s military said it remains ready to repel any provocation by Pyongyang in cooperation with the United States.
Japan’s Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi told reporters that Japan strongly protested the North Korean launch through their embassies in Beijing, saying, “It’s a serious problem that affects the safety of the Japanese people,”.
Lim Eul-chul, a North Korea expert at Kyungnam University, said, “This is a message that Pyongyang is closely watching the upcoming drills and could stage a provocation if it deems one necessary,”.
The Ulchi Freedom Shield training is to start on Monday and run for 11 days, with 18,000 South Korean soldiers taking part, according to South Korea’s military.
Regional stakes and wider ties
The launches were described as likely protests of the upcoming South Korea-U.S. military drills that North Korea views as an invasion rehearsal, with the Japanese Defense Ministry saying the weapon landed in waters outside its exclusive economic zone between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.
“Multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions ban North Korea from launching ballistic missiles.”
The AP report said multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions ban North Korea from launching ballistic missiles, while it said North Korea has refused to return to talks with the U.S. and South Korea for years and has ramped up ballistic and other weapons testing activities since Kim’s high-stakes diplomacy with U.S. President Donald Trump fell apart in 2019.
Al Jazeera also reported that North Korea has ratcheted up its criticism of Tokyo’s defence policy, issuing statements at least seven times since July, and that on Tuesday North Korean state media condemned Japan’s latest defence white paper as a “re-invasion-minded” document.
The same Al Jazeera report linked the missile activity to broader conflict dynamics, saying Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday that Moscow had used a North Korean ballistic missile during an attack that killed seven workers at a Ukrainian steel plant in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia.