\u00a0<\/p>\n
North Korea fired five short-range ballistic missiles into its eastern sea Thursday, in what South Korea described as a \u201cclear act of provocation.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Lee Sung Joon, a spokesperson for South Korea\u2019s Joint Chiefs of Staff, the launches may have been designed to test the performance of weapons that North Korea intends to sell as it continues to supply military equipment and troops to fuel Russia\u2019s conflict against Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Multiple missiles were launched from a region near North Korea\u2019s eastern port city of Wonsan between 8:10 and 9:20 a.m. local time Thursday, with the furthest going approximately 497 miles.<\/p>\n
Mr. Lee said the tests likely involved a short-range ballistic missile system launched from vehicles \u2014 possibly modelled after Russia\u2019s Iskander missile \u2014 and also large-caliber rocket artillery systems.<\/p>\n
The Joint Chiefs said South Korean and U.S. intelligence authorities detected the launch preparations in advance and tracked the missiles after they were launched.<\/p>\n
It issued a statement denouncing the launches as a \u201cclear act of provocation\u201d that threatens peace and stability in the region, according to the Associated Press.<\/p>\n
South Korean military officials are now analysing whether the tests were linked to the North\u2019s weapons exports to Russia.<\/p>\n
In early March, North Korea fired several ballistic missiles into the sea just hours after South Korea and the United States kicked off their first major joint military exercise of President Donald Trump\u2019s second term.<\/p>\n
Those launches come after South Korean and U.S. forces began their annual Freedom Shield exercise.<\/p>\n
After denying its war involvement for months, North Korea last month confirmed for the first time that it had sent combat troops to help Russia in recapturing parts of the Kursk region, which had fallen to a surprise Ukrainian incursion last year.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 North Korea fired five short-range ballistic missiles into its eastern sea Thursday, in what South Korea des<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2519915,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[785168],"tags":[789247,68060,20612,276077,3575],"class_list":{"0":"post-2519914","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-south-korea","8":"tag-ballistic-missiles","9":"tag-north-korea","10":"tag-south-korea","11":"tag-276077","12":"tag-3575"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/wakoka.com\/@news\/114473746359365567","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2519914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2519914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2519914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2519915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2519914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2519914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2519914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}